Standard & Poor's rates the debt of 15 development banks and 14 export credit agencies. Of these 29 financial enterprises, 25 carry the same foreign currency
issuer credit ratings as their sovereign. As set out in our
second commentary article, "Rating National
Development Banks and Export Credit Institutions," these ratings reflect a combination of the following factors: 1.Their close relationships with their government sponsors; 2. Their robust public policy roles; 3. The inability of private-sector financial institutions to provide similar services as efficiently; and 4. Their relative financial strength. In addition, in most instances these institutions face
little prospect of being privatized or having their
mandates materially changed over the next several years. These attributes also exist, but to a lesser degree, for the credit ratings of those entities, where the rating differs from the one of the corresponding sovereign,
including the Development Bank of Japan and two Scandinavian export credit agencies. This July 2007 report comprises Standard & Poor's analysis on these rated national development banks and export credit agencies.
