Rating agencies 'must change methods'

The credit rating agencies, Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, must improve the way in which they are changing how they rate banks, the European supervisor said yesterday. The European Securities and Markets Authority, in its second annual review, said the focus had to be on how banks are rated because of their position at the core of the eurozone crisis. It said the rating agencies still had "shortcomings in the processes of disclosure and implementation of changes in bank rating methodologies".