We all talk about how the rating agencies were, in part, responsible for creating the mess of credit and credit instruments that caused this crisis.
After all, they are meant to be rating credit aren't they?
But I didn't realise exactly how bad a job these guys had done until I saw this quote:
“In January 2008, there were 12 AAA-rated companies in the world. At the same time, there were 64,000 structured
finance instruments, such as CDOs, rated AAA.”
Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs
Speech to the Council of Institutional Investors, April 2009
Jeez ... now we know.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...