PROMISE AND PERIL
Global Credit Outlook 2025
Global credit conditions are likely to remain supportive in 2025—against a backdrop of region- and country-specific divergence and geopolitical uncertainty that threatens to reignite risk-aversion among investors and affect capital flows.
Overview
As we turn our gaze toward 2025, we see a year of promise and peril. The descent in policy interest rates and soft landings in many major economies may deliver on the promise of more favorable credit conditions. On the other hand, intensifying geopolitical and trade tensions increase the peril present in an already tumultuous environment.
Deepening geopolitical rifts pose the biggest risk to an improving credit landscape. The Russia-Ukraine war is approaching the end of its third year and the conflict in the Middle East, along with domestic polarization in certain markets, could disrupt trade and investment flows, roil financial markets, and force governments to increase defense spending amid already-stretched budgets.
At the same time, the easing of monetary policy will come at an uncertain and unsynchronized pace in different regions, with the descent almost sure to be slower than the rise. If central banks are forced to curtail their interest-rate cuts, the costs of debt service and refinancing could remain burdensome for all debt issuers and existential for those at the very low end of the ratings scale.
Economic Research
Questions That Matter
Aligned with our Top Global Risks, we answer the pressing Questions That Matter for 2025 on the uncertainties that will shape the coming year, collected through our interactions with investors and other market participants.
Regional Credit Conditions
S&P Global Ratings’ Global Credit Outlook 2025 builds on the collective insights from our regional and global Credit Conditions Committees (CCCs), which meet quarterly to review conditions in Asia-Pacific, Emerging Markets, Europe, and North America, cascading into our global coverage. At the CCCs, we evaluate the trends affecting economies, industries, and credit markets—to identify our base-case assumptions and rank the exogenous risks that underpin our credit ratings and inform potential rating changes across various asset classes.
