Rating agencies in the limelight

All the top three rating agencies are right amongst the top five gainers on the BSE, with lead taken by ICRA, up over 10% at Rs.3933; Carerating up over 4% at Rs.1241, followed by Crisil, up 4% at Rs.2179 levels.

The reason for this euphoria across all the rating agency stocks is thanks to RBI, in an indirect way. Yesterday, the RBI announced new norms for the corporate bonds market. It stated that banks, from FY18 will have to set aside higher provisions for incremental lending to borrowers, depending on the amount in outstanding loans. The Large Exposure (LE) limit in respect of each counterparty and group of connected counterparties, under normal circumstances, will be capped at 20 percent and 25 percent respectively of the eligible capital base. The proposed LE framework will be fully applicable with effect from March 31, 2019.

This means that the risk weightage imposed by RBI of 150% for unrated bank exposures above Rs.200 crore would mean that business for rating agencies will go up. And the prospect of this increase in business for the rating agencies is what has led to the spike up in their stock prices.