‘Reliance on rating agencies’ fuelled credit crisis

Banks that suffered serious losses during the credit crisis often did so because of avoidable failures in risk monitoring and management. That is the view of a committee of regulators from France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

The Senior Supervisors Group, set up shortly after the start of the crisis, released its findings yesterday. It highlighted overreliance on credit rating agencies as one of the main causes of the problems.

"Firms that performed better in late 2007…were sceptical