National & Regional Scale Credit Ratings

Special-purpose credit ratings that only apply to issues/issuers in a specific country or region

S&P Global Ratings' National Scale Credit Ratings are an opinion of an obligor's creditworthiness (Issuer, Corporate, or Counterparty Credit Rating) or overall capacity to meet specific financial obligations (Issue Credit Rating), relative to other issuers and issues in a given country.

National Scale Credit Ratings provide a rank ordering of credit risk within the country. Given the focus on credit quality within a single country, national scale credit ratings are not comparable between countries. S&P Global Ratings also assigns regional scale credit ratings for certain groups of countries.

Regional Scale Credit Ratings have the same attributes as National Scale Credit Ratings in that they are not comparable to other regional or national scales, and are a relative rank order within the region and exclude direct sovereign risks of a general or systemic nature. The Regional Scale Ratings definitions are the same as the National Scale Credit Ratings definitions but with the word "national" replaced with the word "regional”.

Both National and Regional Scale Credit Ratings use S&P Global Ratings global rating symbols with the addition of a two-letter prefix to denote the country or region.

S&P Global Ratings has introduced a new credit rating scale--the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia national credit rating scale (KSA scale)--for the assignment of credit ratings to issuers domiciled in Saudi Arabia.

The KSA scale is designed for issuers based in Saudi Arabia and for local currency-denominated capital markets debt, bank loans, and shariah-compliant obligations issued in Saudi Arabia. It complements the existing global rating scale and may offer finer credit risk differentiation within Saudi Arabia for issuers, counterparties, intermediaries, investors, and insurers involved in Saudi Arabia's financial markets by providing independent opinions of relative creditworthiness.

Read more in our recently published FAQ, where we answer some questions regarding the KSA scale and the rating process, "Credit FAQ: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia National Credit Rating Scale Explained"

For further information on our national and regional scale ratings generally, see "Guidance: Methodology For National And Regional Scale Credit Ratings."