According to Decree 155/2020/ND-CP guiding the Securities Law, mandatory regulation on credit rating for issuers or bond issued under public offering will take effect from Jan 2023. In order to provide a solid understanding of what credit ratings are, how they are determined and what can cause them to change, VBMA in collaboration with Moodys organized a Webinar on Understanding Credit Ratings with Moodys on Thursday, April 28th, 2022. VBMA members and several bond issuers were the participants of the webinar.

Speaking at the opening of the Webinar, Ms. Ta Thi Bich Thao - Deputy General Secretary of VBMA emphasized "With the modern bond market, the formation and operation of a credit rating company is considered a necessary factor for markets to operate efficiently. The rating agency is a third party that is independent with issuers and investors. The credit rating company will analyze all the factors that may affect the debt repayment ability of the issuer through a credit rating system to help investors make sound investment decisions. In this sense, investors exploit credit ratings as an objective indicator of the reliability of bonds as they buy, hold, and sell those bonds in building their portfolios. Another role of credit ratings is to enhance market transparency. Credit rating agencies not only publish the ratings of issuers, but also regularly monitor changes and then provide information to the market. Recently, credit ratings have been increasingly used for purposes other than bond issuance, such as providing internal investment guidance and managing credit investment products of financial institutions and pension funds".

The Webinar includes 4 parts:

Part 1: Overview about Moody’s, presented by Ms. Alice Lin - Senior Vice President, Head of Strategy & Business Management, Asia Pacific.

Part 2: Credit Rating definition and Moody’s Credit Rating, presented by Ms. Jacintha Poh - Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance Group, Mr. Michael Foley - Vice Chairman, Asia Pacific, Ms. Rebecca Tan -Vice President – Senior Analyst, Financial Institutions Group.

Part 3: Credit Rating Process, presented by Ms. Jacintha Poh - Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance Group, Mr. Michael Foley - Vice Chairman, Asia Pacific, Ms. Rebecca Tan -Vice President – Senior Analyst, Financial Institutions Group.

Part 4: Credit Rating Methodology, presented by Ms. Jacintha Poh - Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance Group, Mr. Michael Foley - Vice Chairman, Asia Pacific, Ms. Rebecca Tan - Vice President – Senior Analyst, Financial Institutions Group and Ms. Alice Lin - Senior Vice President, Head of Strategy & Business Management, Asia Pacific.

In the coming time, VBMA will continue to organize webinars on credit rating to provide and share knowledge about credit rating activities to market members.