Talk:Credit rating agency

message: The article claims that S&P and Moody's controls 80% of the global ratings market.  Can Wikipedia please clarify if this means 80% of all issuances or 80% of the ratings market by dollar amount?   These two things are very, very different.
199.253.174.9 (talk) 19:53, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Control of the market 

message: "More revenue was earned this way because many investors wouldn't buy an unrated bond so issuers wanted to be rated, while subscriptions were "always going to be optional" for bond buyers because information about ratings changes from the larger CRAs could spread so quickly (by word of mouth, email, etc.)." 
How can this be correct for the time period mentioned (70s), since email was not used widely then ?
--Robin of locksley (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Email 

message: Look, there needs to be a clear distinction between US and UK credit mechanisms.  This is important information thats usless in its current format.
:What are the distinctions?  Corporate bonds are corporate bonds.  Sovereign bonds are sovereign bonds. (162.138.176.51 18:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  US/UK distinction 

message: "Ratings agencies... have been implicitly allowed by the government to fill a quasi-regulatory role"
This is an international encyclopaedia, not about a particular country so this sentence shoud say which country's government has acted in this way rather than assume we know already. 
Most of the article is almost entirely about the US. If all CRAs are American then perhaps this should be stated in the introduction
77.103.6.140 (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to "governments" to clarify.  Previous parts of the article talk about ECAIs and how CRAs are used by many different governments under the Basel accords. Epstein's Mother (talk) 15:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Implicit assumption this article is about one country 

message: Will someone please mention Fair Isaac Corporation and its FICO score formula? Its rather important to correctly identify how they relate to the credit rating score.
User:Quarl has merged credit reference/reporting agency with credit rating agency under the overall title of credit rating agency. I would note the following: 
* This merge was done without any discussion whatsoever, or without a merge tag being added.
* Credit reference agencies and credit rating agencies are two entirely different operations and surely deserve separate articles. The credit reference agencies go to great lengths to persuade people that they are not credit rating agencies.
* Please discuss. Arcturus 18:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll leave it for a while to see if any other views are forthcoming. Another option would be an article of a completely different name, which includes rating and reference agencies, credit reporting industry or something like that. Arcturus 18:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair Isaac Corporation and the FICO scores 

message: Consumer credit ratings and credit rating agencies are sufficiently different to warrant separate headings.
(Epstein's Mother 20:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separated out credit bureaus from CRAs 

message: I put this under "Credit Bureau" rather than here because the case actually deals with a private credit report on a company, and it is not clear that it would apply to an actual credit rating agency.  (Also, I changed "high court" to "Supreme Court" and deleted the reference to Bose because it is unclear from the context why Bose would be considered a public figure.  Did you mean a public company?  If so, Bose is not a public company.)  One of the reasons that the D&B case may not apply here is that CRAs "rate" mostly public companies.  Furthermore, unlike the D&B case, the largest CRAs make their ratings public, whereas D&B reported the false information to only five subscribers. Epstein's Mother 21:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders 

message: it would be nice to put here some information about the average fees asked by cra to make their ratings. 90.152.2.74 09:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: fees

message: On the 2nd line the article mentions cities. Would it not be more accurate to say that the credit rating is actually assigned to the council?Zain Ebrahim 11:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities vs city councils 

message: These agencies meet frequently in person with the management of many companies, and advise on actions the company should take to maintain a certain rating. Furthermore, because information about ratings changes from the larger CRAs can spread so quickly (by word of mouth, email, etc.), the larger CRAs charge debt issuers, rather than investors, for their ratings. This has led to accusations that these CRAs are plagued by conflicts of interest that might inhibit them from providing accurate and honest ratings.
This is a good observation and it seems Mr Trichet, the European Central Bank president agrees with this observation
Mr Trichet says lessons need to be learned from the fact that the fees of the credit rating agencies are paid by the very financial institutions whose bonds they are assessing.
hese bonds were frequently given coveted AAA ratings by the three credit rating agencies usually a sign that an investment is safe.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wk muriithi (talk • contribs) 04:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: lol. "The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform accused the agencies of ignoring warnings signs and following the "delirious mob" on Wall Street. Professor Dean Baker, of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, says there were cases of outright corruption." etc. etc. etc. --Mongreilf (talk) 22:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflict of interest section 

message: The use of the word "agency" is a misnomer and implies, at least in the US, that there is some kind of governmental relationship.  These companies aren't "agencies."  They are most often referred to as "ratings firms" in the US press. NoGutsNoGlory (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no implication of government relationship in the title.  There are many different types of agencies other than those of the government.  For instance, modeling agencies, travel agencies, etc.  Further, "agency" is the proper title for these organizations as that is both what they call themselves and is their official business designation.  See .  I don't know where you got this idea that they are referred to as firms in the press.  See    --Ave Caesar (talk) 18:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article title 

message: The section at the beginning is merely a list of Credit Rating Agencies. Where do we draw the line regarding which of them are notable? I think we should create a List of credit rating agencies. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of rating agencies 

message: The Hannover Re example is not a very good example of the "blackmail" accusation.  Large CRAs will rate large issuers regardless of whether they request the rating or not, and the fact that the market dropped on news of Moody's downgrade would seem to indicate that investors believed there were good reasons for the downgrade.  In addition, Eliott Spitzer investigated Moody's in this case, and nothing ever became of it (and he would have been all over the news had he found anything at all).  Epstein's Mother (talk) 23:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blackmail/Hannover Re example 

message: This article has many problems: much of the information presented is distorted, outdated, and uncited, and at 5000+ words it is very, very long. I have some suggestions about editing this article and updating particular details, but first I should note that I am a representative of Moody's—one of the "big three" agencies referenced in the article. Because of this conflict of interest, I won't be making any edits to the article, but hope that other editors will review my suggestions and make them if they judge them accurate and appropriate.
My first suggested change is a rather simple one: cleaning up the "List of credit rating agencies" section. This has been one of the most edited sections recently, in what often seems to be a promotional manner. Some of the new additions to the list are not significant entities. Others are investment research companies or credit bureaus, not credit rating agencies. I would also suggest moving the list to the bottom of the article to improve overall readability. 
This section would be improved if a clear set of criteria for inclusion is established. One possible solution is focusing on global agencies and prominent regional agencies which are the subject of Wikipedia articles now. I have compared the list of agencies recognized by the U.S. SEC ("Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations"), the European Securities and Markets Authority (based on this list) and the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia with existing articles, and this is the resulting list, presented alphabetically:
*A.M. Best Company
*ASSEKURATA
*Cerved Group
*CRISL
*CRISIL
*Dagong Global Credit Rating
*Dominion Bond Rating Service
*Egan-Jones Rating Company
*Fitch Group
*ICAP Group
*ICRA Limited
*Japan Credit Rating Agency, Ltd.
*Moody's Investors Service
*National Credit Ratings Limited
*SME Rating Agency of India
*Standard & Poor's
*Thai Rating and Information Services
Other agencies may be notable, but all of these entries meet the criteria I outlined above, and helps in that it reduces the overall list from 27 to 17. I am open to other suggestions about how to improve this section, but this I believe is a neutral and clear solution. I hope to make further suggestions soon. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 22:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Mysidae. I deleted the section in its entirety. Generally a long list of vendors like that is just link-bait and is usually added by companies looking for a plug. The section "The Big Three" is a good example of how we handle this, though ideally I would like to see it merged into a general Business section that discusses the overall business model and market-size. CorporateM (Talk) 20:40, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for article improvement 

message: I sometimes offer suggestions on Wikipedia articles on behalf of Moody's, and I would like to help improve this page without making direct edits, so I hope another editor can assist with a proposed revision to the current section "CRA business models". A newly prepared draft is in my userspace for others to review or even edit as they see fit: User:Mysidae/Business models.
The current version of this section leaves much to be desired. Firstly, it includes not a single third-party source, which should be of concern given the subject matter, and it makes a number of unsupported claims. The section is not wildly inaccurate, and its treatment of criticisms of the various models is mostly correct. However, it could be better, and reliable sources do exist to verify this information and even add some specifics. Finally, the unusual sub-heading "Open Source model" places too much emphasis on a rating method which is too new to have had much impact, and is not a significant business model at this time. However, it is appropriate to discuss as it is an interesting development, and I have retained a sentence about it. I look forward to any constructive feedback on this suggestion. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 15:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: CorporateM, I appreciate you raising this question. The request was mine, and yes I do consider it to be complete, and I am sorry I did not notice that it was still marked as outstanding, so I will with this edit mark the request as done. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 18:31, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving this article's coverage of CRA business models 

message: I'm making a LOT of changes. Some will probably be trimmed and moved to the Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits 

message: I now present this full draft for consideration, and I wish to invite any and all editors interested in credit markets or global finance to consider these changes. It is my sincere hope that the benefits of presenting this subject in the way I have described will be agreed as superior to the article as it currently exists. This is not intended to be the "final" version of this article, and I understand Wikipedia is never finished. Yet I strongly believe that this draft is a substantial improvement over the existing one, that it is not advocacy notwithstanding my acknowledged connection to the industry, and I will consider making the change at some point soon unless there is a credible objection to the content I have presented. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 22:54, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary

message: I have now made a few changes to the article, the most significant being an updated version of "Use by government regulators". The previous version, but for a single sentence, failed to provide an overview of the prominent but controversial role CRAs play in government regulations. It also focused heavily on Basel II, an agreement now superseded directly by Basel III and long predating the sweeping changes of the Dodd-Frank Act in the United States. The previous version also included a subsection about the United States that was overwhelming in minutae, so I have condensed it to the most important developments and worked it into the overall narrative, rather than treating it as a separate topic, which it is not. As well, the previous section had very few citations. The new version of the subsection accounts for all of these quite serious flaws.
It should be noted that this also does incorporate discussions of criticisms about the role CRAs play. Following discussion above, I should underline the fact that I am not opposed to there being any discussion of critical views of CRAs in these topic sections, however those criticisms should be discussed in context, rather than simply being cut-and-paste from a now-nonexistent "Criticisms" section that was written entirely independently of the material it was recently joined with. (A separate section discussing the-debate-qua-the-debate remains an essential part of this article.) 
This now should be an up-to-date, informative section that is supported by reliable third-party sources. Here is the current version and here is the previous version, for ease of comparison. When I have time I will return and see how else I can improve this article. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article updates: Use by government regulators 

message: I have removed the table showing the comparison of ratings applied by the top rating agencies. This already exists in Bond credit rating and Credit ratings, two articles which may be duplicative by themselves, and if so, here it is in triplicate. This article is not about ratings, it is about rating agencies. In case readers want to find this information, I have for now added a "hat note" for each article at the top of this section.
Secondarily, I have moved the History section to be the first section following the introduction. Considering that discussion of CRAs is complicated, we can at least do the favor to readers of giving them a background in the subject before launching into the discussion of "Ratings" and "The Big Three", subjects which require some context before the reader is so confronted. As always, discussion about these changes or others is welcomed. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 09:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on your description above, these sound like good edits to me. The History section is normally first, except in cases where the subject of the article is complicated enough to warrant explanation up-front before the reader goes further. Sometimes there is overlap between articles if they are on related subjects. Editors could reasonably have different points-of-view about the ratings chart and whether it should be duplicated. I'm not sure whether I would want to keep it here or not. Maybe someone else will have an informed opinion at some point. CorporateM (Talk) 13:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article update: removing redundant table, providing early context with History 

message: Following a cool-down period I wish to propose further changes to improve this article, continuing from changes I had made a week before. In order to explain these changes thoroughly, I must write at some length, however I will be as concise as possible. First, I will offer a critique of the section as it exists. Second, I will explain what my proposed update will do to correct these issues:
*The current "Role in capital markets" section (previously "Uses of ratings") is meant to explain, per the title, the functional use of ratings in capital markets. The third paragraph of the article's introduction effectively previews this section.
*I'd like to focus on the "By bond issuers" and "In structured finance" subsections, which are the two areas I feel need the most work. 
:*The "By bond issuers" subsection is presently only two sentences, neither one of which adequately explains how and why credit ratings are issued for bonds. The second sentence is actually about the agencies' business models, a subject that receives ample coverage in the "Business models" section ahead. 
:* The "In structured finance" subsection is longer, but not much better. Instead of explaining how credit ratings are used in structured finance transactions, the passage begins by addressing the role of credit rating agencies in the subprime mortgage crisis. 
* The next subsection, "Securities", is somewhat better as it at least attempts a functional explanation, especially of the tranching process. But these passages are very difficult to follow, especially for a lay reader. And because the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report is the primary source—it is cited six times—the subsection mostly reads like an extended discussion of the subprime mortgage crisis.
* The next two sub-subsections, "CDOs" and "Financial crisis", are entirely about the subprime mortgage crisis. The "CDOs" section, in particular, is very difficult to read. If edited for clarity, material from these sections could be integrated into either the Subprime mortgage crisis article or the Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis article. 
* All of these sections feel like they were assembled piecemeal. There is little (or no) attempt at organization, and it's hard to imagine that a reader hoping to learn about the use of use of credit ratings in structured finance—with or without regard to the subprime mortgage crisis—would find any of this useful. 
The draft I have put together takes a different approach, although I have tried to integrate the existing material whenever possible. My focus is on presenting a descriptive overview of the subject rather than framing it around recent events. My vision for this section can be found in my user space, which one may wish to follow along with as one reads: User:Mysidae/Credit_rating_agency_-_Proposed_version#Role_in_capital_markets
*The "Information services" section is a high-level overview of CRASs' role in capital markets, the type of opinions expressed, and a preview of their "certification" role by regulators, which is explored in depth later in this overall section.
*The "Market use" section follows immediately, building on the high-level discussion by specifying that CRAs provide assessments about the creditworthiness of bonds issued by corporations, governments, and packagers of asset-backed securities. I explain the process and methodology of how CRAs determine a bond's rating, and identify other sources of credit information about bonds and securities. This sets the stage for a more detailed treatment of "Ratings use in structured finance" and "Ratings use in sovereign debt".
:*My draft of the structured finance section begins by explaining how credit rating agencies became involved in structured finance transactions. Then it identifies and explains the three ways credit ratings for structured finance instruments are different from ratings for other debt securities. Finally, it addresses criticism of the rating agencies with regard to the subprime mortgage crisis. 
:*"Ratings use in sovereign debt" is entirely new material. It's surprising that this topic isn't covered more presently, as sovereign borrowers are the largest debt borrowers in many financial markets. My draft explains why national governments solicit credit ratings, details what the ratings represent in this context, and outlines the rating methodologies used to assess them. Finally, it address criticisms of CRAs related to the 1997 Asian Financial crisis and more recent Eurozone crisis. 
*I had previously replaced the "Use by government regulators" section, and it has not been changed since. I believe it should be left as-is.
It is my request that another editor review this material and express their opinions about its suitability for replacing the current section. For anyone who has read this full explanation and compared both sections, many thanks in advance. Mysidae (talk) 01:32, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Role in capital markets: case for rearrangement and partial replacement 

message: I missed the dispute earlier this month between CorporateM and Mysidea but would like to put in my two cents worth on some of Mysidea's suggestions pasted here with their bullet points.
*The colorful table at the top of the article is a recent addition, one which makes it hard for readers to get into the article, and which belongs in the Bond credit rating or Credit ratings article, but is not a must have for this one. And certainly not at the very top.
::I was the one who originally added the chart and restored it but on further consideration I'll go along with the deletion. I have restored some deleted text which I think helps explain what the ratings ares supposed to represent.
::::Higher grades are intended to represent a lower probability of default. For example one studyCantor, R., Hamilton, D.T., Kim, F., and Ou, S., 2007 Corporate default and recovery rates. 1920-2006, Special Comment: Moody's investor Service, June Report 102071, 1-48 page 24cited by authors Herwig Langohr and Patricia Langohr reportedly shows that over a "5-year time horizon" for bonds rated by Moody's, "the Aaa cumulative default rate was 0.18%, the Aa2 0.28%, rising to 2.11% for Baa2, 8.82% for Ba2 and 31.24% for B2. The order is by and large, but not exactly, preserved over longer time horizons."  
*Long sections of this article are unsourced, and those which are often are sourced to popular columnists in newspapers, hardly a scholarly source. The draft I have prepared relies upon scholarly papers, university-level textbooks and similar academic sources where possible to provide a dispassionate overview of the topic.
::If Mysidea is referring to journalists like Bethany MacLean and Joe Nocera, I can't agree. They are reliable sources. In particular I hope that any language with a trace of vividness is not deleted from the article on the grounds that it is "POV" or "unencyclopedic". 
*Large scans of images from government reports have been included recently. I believe they are difficult to read, and make the sections where they appear harder to read. While I do not categorically oppose their inclusion, I do not think they are helpful. I have omitted them from the draft I propose.
::Again I am responsible for these. One chart in particular shows that more than half of the CDOs given the highest credit rating by Moody and other agencies were "impaired" -- i.e. downgraded to junk or lost principal by 2010. Yes, scanning the charts causes some loss in resolution, and if you reduce them in size to what they are now they cannot be read. But if someone think this isn't relevent to an article on credit rating agencies, I am willing to go through the whole dispute process to keep at least some of them in. Why don't we make the images larger instead of deleting them? --BoogaLouie (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed my name in the edit-history, but didn't investigate the diffs in detail. I did a very rough re-work of a lot of highly POV material that relied heavily on a single source and did some other initial re-working. On the contrary, not only is no RfC necessary, but I'm happy to see someone cleanup after me a bit. The "For example one study" sentence is very disorienting to the general audience that Wikipedia is intended for. It reads like a jumbled mess of letters and numbers and you would have to understand the rating system to be able to comprehend it. If it is included, it should be replaced with something a layman could understand without having to read the rest of the article or understand the ratings system to comprehend. Also, other agencies should be represented in a similar fashion. CorporateM (Talk) 14:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I re-read that sentence after your first complaint on the talk page and didn't understand why you thought it was so bad. Have now gone back a 2nd time and have rewritten it. Hopefully an improvement.--BoogaLouie (talk) 20:40, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: recent edits

message: I am glad that BoogaLouie found my history draft useful, and inserted so much of it into the current article. However, the integration of this material alongside existing passages has created some structural problems. 
There are currently two subsections that cover the emergence of credit rating agencies: "Origins" and "Early history". The presence of two such sections is confusing for readers, as they contain similar material, but are presented using different framing language. The one 
"Origins" paragraph and the first paragraph of "Early history" could easily be consolidated for clarity. I suggest doing so as follows: 
:;Early history
:Mercantile credit agencies—the precursors of today's rating agencies—were established in the wake of the financial crisis of 1837. These agencies rated the ability of merchants to pay their debts, and consolidated these ratings in published guides. The first such agency was established in 1841 by Louis Tappan in New York. It was subsequently acquired by Robert Dun, who published its first ratings guide in 1859. Another early agency, John Bradstreet, formed in 1849 and published a ratings guide in 1857.
I think "Early history" is a better subhead than "Origins", in part because the latter is clearly borrowed from the Langohr and Langohr source. But choosing either one would be preferable to keeping both. I would also suggest cutting out the "Establishment of "The Big Three"" subhead (not the material itself), as it is unnecessary and disrupts the article's flow. 
Regarding the inclusion of factual claims and language cited to the McLean and Nocera book:
I am not opposed to using this source as a citation. My proposed version preserves several of the book's claims, and I use Devils as a citation five times. However, I think CorporateM was correct in trimming out anecdotes and POV quotes from the book, as these made the article feel like a book report and not an encyclopedia article.  
Rather than rewriting and restructuring so much of the article to include material from one source, we should integrate claims from the book within the established structure of the article. This approach is especially important as there are a great many books and academic articles about the financial crisis that could be used as sources (e.g. Too Big to Fail, Fault Lines, Guaranteed to Fail, etc.) I would highly recommend reading Andrew Lo's review of financial crisis literature, which includes All the Devils Are Here (and of which he has many nice things to say). What's important here is that the author concludes that many of the books and academic articles reviewed present contrasting narratives of the financial crisis, and there is a little agreement as to its underlying causes. This makes this article's reliance upon one source all the more troubling. And while I'm not opposed to "language with a trace of vividness",  there are several passages throughout the current article that are simply not encyclopedic in tone. 
 
(I will note briefly, in the current version, Bethany McLean is referred to as "Bethany MacLean" once within the article's text, five times in the references section, and once (again) on this talk page. The Amazon page for All the Devils are Here spells her last name as McLean, as does the current Wikipedia page about the author. I don't mean to pile on, but this speaks to my stated concerns about the article's accuracy.)
:edited article with most of your changes. Thank you for your work. Will get to capital markets stuff in the near future. --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Feedback

message: Despite the concerns I've stated above, I'm very pleased that progress is being made in the development of this article. I would like to suggest that active editors—and this primarily means BoogaLouie—please review or re-review my previous post about improving the "Role in capital markets" section.
The proposed draft I put together includes several passages of new material that I don't think are at all controversial, especially the "Information services" subsection. My proposed "Market use" subsection is a combination of existing and new material, and presents a straightforward description of the process and methodology of how CRAs determine a bond's rating, amongst other information. 
You'll find a more detailed description and explanation of my proposed changes in the post above. I hope you can review these suggestion, post questions or comments here, and insert the material into the article if you feel its ready. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 00:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestions

message: I think it would be a good idea to use your proposed version as the structure for the article. However, I think the draft has some problems and part of the solution is to insert parts of the current article into it. 
Goodness knows there are problems with sources, continuity, etc., in the current article, but my fear is that in upgrading the article from "book report" level you have bypassed "encyclopedic level" on the way to technical report level. 
*Example: 
:CRA ratings have been used in a "certification" role when they are embedded in regulatory capital allocation requirements and thresholds. 
I'm sure everyone who's anyone knows what the  "certification" role for "regulatory capital allocation requirements and thresholds" is, but wikipedia is intended to explain to the layperson! We need more explanation here.
*In the next sentence:
:However, the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act mandates United States federal agencies remove statutory references to credit rating agencies and replace them with appropriate alternatives for evaluating creditworthiness.
Any idea what the "appropriate alternatives" are?  Have they been established? Or is this something that has to be developed under Dodd Frank? 
*.. and the next
:The Basel III accord retains references to credit ratings with regard to minimum capital standards and minimum liquidity ratios for banks.
How about some a thumbnail sketch of those references? I'm sure if the reader hunted around in articles under Basel II they could find more information but again, this shouldn't be need-to-know stuff. 
*An example of my concern over "vivid" writing. Maybe I should say "getting-to-the-point" writing:
 
:Issuers of structured finance products embraced these ratings as they allowed investors who are subject to ratings-based constraints to access the securities market.
By "ratings-based constraints", do you mean investors were required to buy only triple A rating securities? (Yes there are funds devoted to "high yield" securities but are they not overwhelmingly outnumbered in net worth by funds that require triple A ratings?)  I am concerned that vagueness and technical language in the article will cause readers eyes to glaze and fingers to click to something else. 
Part of the hubbub about "conflict of interest" I suspect is not only that some information is squeezed out but that it be made vague and boring. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral and encyclopedic, but not boring. 
* In Structured Finance
:Third, the payment "waterfall" created by tranching is contractually complex, even in transactions with only a few tranches. Making accurate repayment prognoses is thus more difficult than in the case of other debt ratings. 
This is the first mention of the traunche structure in the article. Again, the reader can go to another article and find out how the tranches and waterfall work, but couldn't we have a thumb nail sketch? 
PS: If my suggestions are too much work, I can work on them.
*Concerning the structure: 
**Not sure of the difference between Information services  and Market use is in those sections. The markets certainly use information. 
**Not sure about the order of content either. Shouldn't we first have a brief explanation of the criteria for an initial rating and how it is determined, and then talk about rating on an ongoing basis? 
See what you think --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:58, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for this detailed review, BoogaLouie. Your recommendations are very reasonable, and I hope you'll give me a chance to adjust my proposed material to reflect your suggestions. I will try to post that new draft here in the next few days, along with some additional feedback to your points above. Many thanks, Mysidae (talk) 21:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to suggestions, i.e. [[User:Mysidae/Credit rating agency - Proposed version]]

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on Credit rating agency. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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thread_title:  External links modified