Article 4Corporate ratings

1.

Credit rating agencies shall, when reporting corporate ratings, classify them within one of the following industry segments:

(a)

financial institutions, including banks, brokers and dealers;

(b)

insurance;

(c)

all other corporate entities or issuers which are not included in points (a) and (b).

2.

Credit rating agencies shall classify corporate issues as one of the following issue types:

(a)

bonds;

(b)

covered bonds as referred to in Article 52(4) of Directive 2009/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council6 that meet the eligibility requirements set out in paragraphs 1 to 3, 6 and 7 of Article 129 of Regulation (EU) No 575/20137;

(c)

other types of covered bonds, for which the credit rating agency has used specific covered bond methodologies, models or key rating assumptions for issuing the credit rating and which are not included in point (b);

(d)

other types of corporate issues which are not included in points (a), (b) and (c).

3.

The country code of a rated entity or its issues in Field 10 of Table 1 of Part 2 of Annex I shall be that of the country of domicile of the entity.