To cover its operational costs, NCR enters into a contract with the entity requesting a credit rating and charges that entity a fee for producing and monitoring the credit rating. This solicited model allows our analysts to engage directly with the issuer’s senior management in order to develop an in-depth understanding of the issuer’s credit profile. The business model also allows unrestricted public distribution of the credit rating, which ensures all market participants have access to the credit rating at the same time, ensuring a level playing field.
To manage potential conflicts of interest which may arise due to our business model, information is not permitted to flow freely between our commercial and analytical teams. Under this setup, analytical employees cannot be aware of any commercial terms in the rating contract and the commercial employees cannot participate in the process of determining the credit rating writing credit research.