The strengths and weaknesses of an economy and banking industry are critical factors that underpin the credit profile of a country's financial institutions. For that reason, to analyze the credit standing of a financial institution, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services places it in the context of the broad economic, regulatory, and legal environment where it operates. We distill this analysis into a single Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment, or BICRA, that reflects the strengths and weakness of a country's banking industry relative to other countries'. BICRAs classify countries into 10 groups ranging from the lowest-risk banking industries (Group 1) to the highest risk (Group 10) from a bank credit perspective. At present, we assign BICRAs to the banking industries of
