United Kingdom
Date of last update: April 4th, 2022
The United Kingdom left the European Uniom on January 31st, 2020 and the transition period ended on December 31st, 2020.
The United Kingdom has transposed the EU Regulation on Credit Rating Agencies into national law via the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) being the regulator of UK-registered and certified credit rating agencies (CRAs).
Registered Credit Rating Agencies in the UK
The folowing CRAs have requested preliminary registration/certification:
- A.M. Best Europe, Rating Services Limited
- ARC Ratings
- DBRS Ratings Limited
- Egan-Jones Ratings Company
- Fitch Ratings (CIS) Limited
- Fitch Ratings Limited
- HR Ratings de Mexico
- Kroll Bond Rating Agency UK Limited
- Japan Credit Rating Agency
- Moody’s Investors Service Limited
- S&P Global Ratings UK Limited
- Scope Ratings UK Limited
- The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited
UK based CRAs may endorse ratings issued by its European affiliates as well as EU based CRAs may endorse ratings issued by the UK affiliates. The UK FCA and EUs ESMA have both undertaken the "as stringent as" assessment in order to allow such an endorsement.
Indicative Mapping of Credit Ratings to Regulatory Scales
Based on information available at the Bank of England as Prudential Authority, the United Kingdom will use the same mapping of ECAI ratings as applicable in the European Union currently. The table below summarizes the mapping:
Indicative market shares
Based on the Transparency reports of UK FCA registered CRAs for fiscal year 2021 (as available by End March 2022), we have calculated on an indicative basis the following market shares:
Follow this link to see our estimate for the EU rating market.