International Banking Credit Analysis Ltd (IBCA) was a leading European credit rating agency with offices in London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. IBCA produced and sold credit reports on more than 400 financial institutions worldwide and 100 corporations in Europe (Gaik Eng, 1999). It had 1500 subscribers and also received rating fees from institutions issuing commercial papers such as bonds. In the 1990s, two agencies, Standard & Poor's and Moody's dominated the international ratings industry. Both these agencies had a much wider scope of coverage than IBCA, which focused mainly on financial institutions, insurance companies, corporations and sovereign countries. .
IBCA Issue.
In this case analysis, IBCA faces some international barriers. First of all, their industry is highly competitive, with both local rating agencies, as well as foreign agencies, which in turn challenge their strategies for global expansion. To correspond with their challenges with global expansion, are the issues they face in their long-term prospects. These two issues actually harmonize with one another. Even with the highly competitive market, some developing industrial countries ( i.e. Southeast Asia), have a lot of growth potential for rating agencies, but some of their organizations are being forced by the local governments to have their institutions rated by local rating agencies, rather than the foreign rating agencies. For an organization like IBCA, it makes it difficult to strategize, and predict growth in these countries. From a long-term growth perspective, IBCA is looking at two main markets for expansion. The Latin American markets, and the Asian markets are the markets with the most growth potential. Their issue is whether to continue to expand in these markets in an unplanned fashion, or to accentuate one area over the other. .
SWOT Analysis.
Strengths.