CRISIL
Overview
CRISIL, now styled Crisil, is a Mumbai-headquartered analytics company best known as India's first credit rating agency and as one of the most frequently cited sources in Indian financial journalism. Its full original name was Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited. Founded in 1987, the company has grown from rating Indian debt instruments into a diversified group providing ratings, research, data, analytics and advisory solutions to banks, corporations, investors and governments in India and internationally. It is majority owned by S&P Global and is listed on Indian stock exchanges.
For newsrooms, Crisil matters in two ways. First, its credit ratings and rating changes on companies, banks and debt instruments are themselves market-moving news that business papers and television channels report routinely. Second, its research output — economic forecasts, industry studies and sector commentary from named economists and analysts — is quoted daily in the Indian financial press. Few Indian agencies supply as much of the raw material of business news.
History and Founding
CRISIL was incorporated on 29 January 1987 and was introduced in 1988 as India's first credit rating agency. It was set up jointly by ICICI and the Unit Trust of India, with share capital also coming from institutions including the State Bank of India, the Life Insurance Corporation and United India Insurance Company. Its arrival gave India's developing capital markets, until then dependent on investors' own assessments, a specialist institution that would publish independent opinions on the creditworthiness of debt issuers.
The company went public with an initial public offering in 1993. Through the 1990s, as India's economy liberalised, it broadened beyond its early work rating debentures and fixed deposit programmes into areas such as commercial paper, structured finance, bank loans and municipal bonds, according to studies of the agency's evolution. In April 2005 the United States-based ratings group Standard & Poor's acquired a majority stake, a relationship that has continued under S&P Global, which holds about 66 percent of the company. In January 2025 the company unveiled a refreshed brand identity, writing its name as "Crisil" and presenting its businesses under one cohesive brand.
Services and Business Units
Crisil organises its work under four businesses. Crisil Ratings offers independent credit ratings in India, used by lenders, investors and issuers for decision-making and benchmarking. Crisil Intelligence, formerly Market Intelligence & Analytics, provides insights, consulting, technology-driven risk solutions and advanced data analytics for clients across government and public and private enterprises. Crisil Coalition Greenwich works with global financial institutions on benchmarking and analytics for corporate banking and investment markets. Crisil Integral IQ, formerly Global Research & Risk Solutions, delivers research, risk, lending, analytics and operations support to financial institutions around the world.
The company's own descriptions summarise the whole offering as ratings, data, research, analytics and solutions. In India its regulated research arm is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India as a research analyst. The group describes itself as India's largest valuation agency for fixed income securities and a prominent provider of debt and hybrid indices, and it publishes rankings for mutual fund schemes and portfolio analysis services for asset managers, financial intermediaries, retirement funds and institutional investors. In April 2024 Crisil received SEBI approval to provide ESG ratings in India, extending its franchise into sustainability assessment.
How Newsrooms and Clients Use Crisil
Issuers use a Crisil rating when raising debt, because the rating gives potential investors an independent assessment of the likelihood that the debt will be serviced on time. Investors, banks, brokers and governments use the same ratings and the research behind them when deciding where to place money and at what price. A rating upgrade, downgrade or outlook change by Crisil is therefore a standard item of financial news, and its rating rationales, which are published as press releases, are a primary source for journalists explaining a company's financial position.
Crisil's economists are also part of the public economic debate. Its research publications carry named analytical contacts, such as its chief economist and principal economists, and named media-relations contacts, which makes its output easy for newsrooms to attribute and follow up. Its macroeconomic notes, monsoon and agriculture risk assessments such as its rainfall-deficiency scoring work, and industry reports are routinely summarised in newspapers and quoted in broadcast discussions of the economy.
Headquarters and Footprint
Crisil is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra; its corporate address is in Andheri East, Mumbai. Although headquartered in India, the company describes its workforce as globally diverse, operating in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. Its publications list a presence across countries including Argentina, Australia, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. As of March 2022 it was India's largest ratings company, with a market capitalisation of about Rs 23,429 crore, and studies of the agency credit it with having rated over 100,000 entities and debt instruments over its history.
Ownership and Leadership
Crisil is a public subsidiary of S&P Global, which owns a majority stake of about 66 percent. The company is traded on the BSE and the National Stock Exchange under the symbol CRISIL. Its managing director and chief executive is Amish Mehta, who fronted the January 2025 brand relaunch, describing the new identity as expressing a more progressive vision while continuing to deliver actionable insights built on the analytical rigour and domain expertise of its people. Sanjay Chakravarti has served as chief financial officer. The S&P Global parentage connects Crisil's Indian ratings practice to one of the world's largest financial information groups, while its day-to-day ratings and research businesses are run from India.
Digital Presence and Platforms
Crisil's main digital home is crisil.com, with dedicated sites for its businesses, including its intelligence and Integral IQ portals, through which it publishes reports, indices, rankings and commentary. Its economists' notes and research documents are distributed as publications carrying its standard "About Crisil" description and media contacts, and the company maintains an active presence on professional and social platforms, including LinkedIn and X, where its reports and rating actions circulate to the financial community. In January 2025 the brand relaunch unified the presentation of Crisil Ratings, Crisil Intelligence, Crisil Coalition Greenwich and Crisil Integral IQ so that clients encounter one connected identity across those platforms.
The company has also publicised technology-led products within its risk and analytics work, including artificial-intelligence-based tools for automating the creation of credit reports and for extracting loan data from credit agreements, and it has pointed to repeated inclusion in industry rankings of risk-technology providers as evidence of that push.
Role in the Indian News Ecosystem
Crisil occupies a distinctive place in Indian business journalism: it is simultaneously a subject of news, a source of news and an arbiter whose judgements other news is measured against. When a major borrower is downgraded, when municipal or infrastructure debt is rated, or when its economists revise a growth or monsoon assessment, the development is reported across the financial press. Its mutual fund rankings and fixed-income indices similarly generate recurring coverage. Because it was India's first rating agency, its rating scale and methods helped set the conventions that later agencies and the market adopted.
The breadth of the group beyond ratings — industry research used by ministries and enterprises, benchmarking used by global banks, and risk solutions used by lenders — means its name appears in news stories well beyond the bond market, from agriculture and infrastructure to banking strategy.
Notable Facts and Developments
Several milestones define Crisil's public record. It was established in 1987 as India's first credit rating agency and, by some academic accounts, among the earliest in Asia. It listed publicly in 1993, passed into majority S&P ownership in 2005, and by 2022 was India's largest ratings company by market value. In April 2024 it received SEBI approval for ESG ratings in India. In June of an earlier expansion phase it bought a stake of about 9 percent in its rival CARE Ratings, a move reported at the time as a strategic investment that made it a major shareholder in a competitor and signalled a refocus on the credit ratings business. In January 2025 it adopted its current single-name brand, "Crisil", across all four business lines.
How to Access and Use Crisil
Investors, issuers and journalists access Crisil through crisil.com, where rating press releases, research reports, indices and mutual fund rankings are published, and through the business-specific portals for Crisil Intelligence and Crisil Integral IQ. Companies seeking a rating approach Crisil Ratings, which assigns and surveils ratings on debt instruments and issuers. Newsrooms typically cite the rating action or report, the named analysts, and the company's media-relations contacts listed on its publications for follow-up. Its shares trade on the BSE and NSE for those tracking the company itself as an investment.
