Just a few years ago, the very word RATING was completely unknown, or, in the best of cases, confusedly identified with other Anglo-Saxon terms with a diametrically opposite meaning.
The word rating would have a translation equivalent to ” estimate, valuation “, or more approximate, of qualification .
It is going to be, precisely, an estimate or referenced rating that is going to mean, in short, this process known as rating .
The importance of qualification will derive from two fundamental aspects.
On the one hand, because its application is going to be extended (at least, potentially) to any type of borrowers, countries, supranational organizations, and companies of all kinds.
Second, because the rating levels resulting from the application of the rating process are intended to have, in principle, the same validity (that is, they imply analogous credit quality within each level) regardless of the class of borrower.
Hence, the rating will try to provide an expressive reference indicator of the greater or lesser capacity or probability of payment in the stipulated time, both of the interest and of the repayment of the principal that all debt entails, in short, of the lesser or greater credit risk that it supports the investor who has lent his funds to the entity that has received them.
book THE RATING AND THE RATING AGENCIES
You have extensive information about the RATING , at all levels, in the book :
This link gives you free access, for consultation, to one of my books, a classic on this subject and used by teachers in many universities in Spain and abroad.
It was also the first publication on RATING to be published in our country.
Síguenos en