Glossary
Understand the ECB vocabulary
- Asset
- Austerity
- Balance sheet
- Bank reserves
- Bond
- Bond market
- Carbon footprint
- Central bank
- Central bank governor
- Central bank independence
- Civil society organisation
- Climate and environmental crisis
- Climate neutrality
- Collateral framework
- Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP)
- Coupon
- Credit Rating Agency (CRA)
- Debt
- Debt sustainability
- Deflation
- Deposit guarantee scheme
- Digital euros
- Eurogroup
- European Central Bank
- European Central Bank's Executive Board
- European Central Bank's Governing Council
- European Central Bank's strategy review
- European Commission
- European Council
- European Court of Justice
- European Green Deal
- European Parliament
- European Stability Mechanism
- European Union Treaties
- Eurosystem
- Eurozone/euro area
- EU taxonomy (for sustainable activities)
- Financial assets
- Financial speculation
- Fiscal rules
- Globalisation
- Green targeted longer-term refinancing operations (green TLTROs)
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Growth
- Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP)
- Helicopter money
- Household
- Inflation
- Inflation target
- Interest rate
- Investment bank
- Investor
- Key interest rate/policy rate
- Liquidity
- Loan
- Loan guarantees
- Mandate
- Market neutrality
- Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
- Monetary dialogue
- Monetary policy
- Monetary financing
- Negative interest rate
- Pandemic Emergency Purchasing Programme (PEPP)
- Price stability
- Paris Agreement
- Primary mandate
- Private sector
- Quantitative easing
- Real economy
- Risk
- Secondary mandate
- Sovereign debt
- Sustainable finance
- Targeted longer-term refinancing Operations (TLTROs)
- Technocrat
- Treasury
- Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
- Universal Basic Income
- US Federal Reserve
Credit Rating Agency (CRA)
An organization which assigns a score to a prospective debtor (an individual, company or government) and/or their individual products (bonds, stocks) depending on their ability to repay their debt. CRAs determine the creditworthiness of the debtor by looking at the information about the state of their finances as well as by collecting other non-public information. They use letters such as A, B, C, with higher grades representing more creditworthiness. The largest credit rating agencies are Standard & Poor's, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings (known as the big three).
