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Icra Ltd, which recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey's First Turkish Credit Rating Agency to set up Turkey's first credit rating agency, expects to get necessary clearances from Turkey's Securities and Exchanges Commission to begin operations by May of this year.
Icra will depute two or three executives and organise training programmes for FTCRA staff covering theoretical and practical aspects of credit rating of various types of debt instruments, besides the methodology for analysing and evaluating businesses and institutions, their financials, and their credit worthiness, Icra managing director P K Choudhury said in Kolkata on Thursday.
Icra will aid FTCRA prepare its credit rating manual as well.
Choudhury said FTCRA already had several mandates in hand and was only awaiting the clearance to commence operations. In Turkey, the banking, mutual fund and construction sectors were expected to be major users of the service.
"Turkey's bank are moving towards Basle II compliance where the rating would help ", he said.
Clients were keen on rating of issuers and of project finance proposals rather than rating of debt or other instruments as the debt market in Turkey was underdeveloped, he added.
Choudhury said operation in Turkey would begin with seven persons, and was expected to be scaled up to 30 analysts in a few years as demand picked up.
FTCRA expects Icra to help in institutionalising the system of credit rating in Turkey, Mesut Kuruoglu, general manager of FTCRA, said recently.
As Turkey's first rating company, FTCRA seeks to imbibe Icra's expertise and become the trend-setter in assessment of the credit risks at a juncture when Turkey is on the verge of becoming a part of the European Union, he added.
Icra had singed a technical collaboration agreement with the Bulgarian Credit Rating Agency some time ago to gain a foothold in the European market.
Icra helped in establishment of credit rating agencies in Kuwait and Bangladesh and was looking at operations in other Asian and European countries, Choudhury added.