Let me now give you some more information on the way the Eurosystem handles credit risk assessment in the context of its own credit operations. As you are probably aware, Article 18.1 of the Statute of the ESCB requires that all credit operations conducted by the ECB and the National Central Banks (NCBs) should be based on adequate collateral.
In particular all such collateral must meet high credit standards. The Eurosystem has defined an elaborate framework of credit assessment (the European Credit Assessment Framework – ECAF) to ensure that such standards are met. In the assessment of the credit standard of eligible assets, the Eurosystem takes into account credit assessment information from credit assessment systems belonging to different sources.