The Graveyard of Authorized Credit Rating Agencies in the European Union

Rating agencies have been registered in the European Union since 2010 in order to operate in accordance with the EU regulation on rating agencies of 2009 (CRAR). Dozens of agencies have therefore made use of the option, but also the obligation, to register or get certified. Rating agencies are only allowed to operate in the European Union after authorization, namely registration or certification.

A public list is kept at the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on the registered or certified agencies. This list is an important reference for all market participants in order to find out about the approved agencies.

In order to make it easy to find it, the list of authorized credit rating agencies was linked e.g. from the website everling.de from the beginning. Since 1998, long before the word “blog” found its way into the German language, the website everling.de has been dealing with credit rating issues and the statutory or voluntary regulation and self-regulation of credit rating agencies.

It is less well known that a number of rating agencies have now returned their licenses. The return of licenses was particularly evident through brexit, when all those rating agencies that are based in Great Britain and were registered there could no longer be recognized by ESMA.

The following is a complete list of 16 de-registered or de-certified credit rating agencies as of May 7, 2021: