Australia
Legislative framework
The Australian legal and regulatory framework for credit rating agencies was introduced on January 1st, 2010. Credit rating agencies are required to hold an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence granted by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (“ASIC”). Under the AFS licensing regime, credit rating agencies are required to meet the general licensee obligations set out in the Corporations Act and specially tailored conditions relating to credit rating agencies. Credit Rating Agencies may request to be registered for retail investors and wholesale investors separately.
As ASIC does not maintain a specific list of CRAs, according to our research, the following companies are currently registered as credit rating agencies in Australia:
- Australia Ratings
- A.M. Best Asia Pacific Limited
- FitchRatings
- Moody’s Investors Services PTY Limited
- Standard & Poor‘s (Australia) PTY Limited
According to our understanding, Australia Ratings is the only CRA registered for the retail investors. The ASIC Annual Report for 2012-2013 mentions that 7 CRAs are registered in Australia.
Relation with European Union
In December 2011, ESMA announced that EU-registered CRAs may endorse credit ratings issued in Australia.
On April 18th, 2012, ESMA issued its technical advice to the European Commission and concluded that the Australian legal and supervisory framework for CRAs is equivalent to the EU regulatory regime. http://www.esma.europa.eu/system/files/2012_-259_0.pdf.
On October 5th, 2012, the European commission adopted the decision on the recognition of the legal supervisory frameworks of Australia as equivalent to the requirements of the EU CRA Regulation. http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/securities/docs/agencies/20121005-equiv-australia_en.pdf
Usefull links
ASIC: http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA): http://www.apra.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.apra.gov.au/adi/PrudentialFramework/Documents/ECAI_guidelines_January_2013.pdf