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7/25/24, 9:36 AM

FRB: Press Release -- Supervisory letter on effective internal credit rating systems -- September 21, 1998

Release Date: September 21, 1998

For immediate release
The Federal Reserve today issued a supervisory letter which emphasizes the importance of
developing and implementing effective internal credit rating systems and stresses the
important role such systems should play in credit risk management, especially at large
banking organizations.
The letter instructs examiners to evaluate the adequacy of such systems as an element of the
normal supervisory process, and tells examiners to consider the results of that evaluation in
assessing an institution's risk management, capital adequacy, and asset quality. To assist
examiners in their evaluation, the letter describes sound practices in the design of risk rating
systems and in the internal processes by which banks assign and validate risk ratings. The
letter also addresses current and emerging practices in application of risk ratings to several
key areas of large banks' overall risk management processes.
Internal credit risk ratings are used by large banking institutions to identify gradations in
credit risk among their business loans. The supervisory letter grows out of a Federal Reserve
staff analysis of internal credit risk rating systems and exposures at large institutions. The
long-term goal of this analysis is to encourage broader adoption of sound practices in the
use of such ratings and to promote further innovation and enhancements by the industry in
this area.
The supervisory letter is attached.
1998 Banking and consumer regulatory policy
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https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/general/1998/19980921/

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