Credit agencies: Triple-eh?

Armed with triple-A ratings, structured financial products fuelled the credit boom – and, as the ratings’ credibility evaporated, the bust. Yet securities lending schemes designed by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England to ease financial sector pressures rely on those same ratings. The central banks should promote ratings reform by encouraging a new approach. You’d think Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s might, for the sake of their reputations, go back to the drawing board with struc...