A credit rating agency (CRA, also called a ratings service) is a company that assigns credit ratings, which rate a debtor's ability to pay back debt by making timely principal and interest payments and the likelihood of default. An agency may rate the creditworthiness of issuers of debt obligations, of debt instruments and in some cases, of the servicers of the underlying debt but not of individual consumers.. What are These Ratings? A credit rating issued by a rating agency is an assessment of