Rating is an assessment carried out by a company specialized in evaluating debt issuers according to their financial strength, capacity of payment on different terms (long / short) and their vulnerability in the event of theoretical changes in the external environment.

Rating Agencies assess not only private issuers (companies that apply for financing in markets by means of the issue of fixed income bonds) in their different rating scales, but they also assess the payment capacity of different countries.

As this is an external and independent assessment of the theoretical future risk of non-payment by the issuer, the ratings usually have a direct relation with the price of issue. Thus, as the assessment worsens, the issuers (companies or countries) take on a larger risk in their issues.

The assessment is divided basically into two large blocks:

• Investment Grade, which includes issuers whose payment capacity is considered sufficient, with different grading within the Investment Grade itself, in order to differentiate the greatest or least financial strength. The grades of the Investment Grade for long term, with the exception of differences in nomenclature of the different Agencies, usually vary between AAA or Aaa, and BBB or Baa.
  
   
• Speculative Grade, which includes those issuers with greater risk of non-fulfilment of its payment commitments.

CAJA MADRID is rated by the main international credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investor Service and Fitch Ratings, and has currently been assigned the following ratings:

Caja Madrid Rating
Long Term: A+	Long Term: Aa3	Long Term: AA-
Short Term: A-1	Short Term: P-1	Short Term: F1+
Negative Outlook	Stable Outlook	Negative Outlook

For details about the rating methodologies please access to the rating agencies websites.

To view the rating scale comparison for the different rating agencies click here.