Berlin Rating Agency Gains Clients Due to Parity with US Competitors - CEO Adjusts Break-Even Goal for Sales Growth
By Anna Sleegers, Frankfurt
"ECB awards Scope a distinctive selling feature"
Recently, the German rating agency Scope has experienced growth, acquiring numerous new clients. Despite initial expectations of a faster integration, Scope's CEO, Florian Schoeller, discusses with the Financial Times the reasons behind the delay. Interestingly, the European Central Bank (ECB) hasn't incorporated Scope into its operations – instead, Scope has been involved in rating entities like the US and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Conversations with Florian Schoeller
As of now, the EIB has accepted the ratings of Scope, leading to a surge of clients. This growth comes accompanied by increased regulatory requirements, causing the break-even point for this year to be missed.
In conversation, Schoeller explains that the delay stemmed from technical complexities associated with their ratings, which are also distributed to all national central banks by the ECB. The ECB's focus, however, is on its innovation platform dedicated to the digital euro project[2][4], with 70 market participants including merchants, fintech companies, banks, and payment service providers.
The EIB's evaluation process
Being appointed by the EIB for a solicited creditworthiness rating[3][5] is part of their regular evaluation process to promote market competition and maintain their 'AAA' rating with a 'Stable' outlook[5]. Alongside Scope, other leading agencies like Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P are also involved in this process.
- The increased client base at Scope, a German rating agency, can be attributed to the acceptance of their ratings by the European Investment Bank (EIB), a move that's part of the EIB's regular evaluation process to boost market competition.
- As Scope's ratings are also distributed to national central banks by the European Central Bank (ECB), the complexity of their ratings processes initially caused a delay in integration, with the ECB currently focusing on its innovation platform for the digital euro project.
