The In-house Credit Assessment System of Banca d'Italia

Banca d’Italia’s In-house Credit Assessment System (ICAS) is one of the sources for the valuation of collateral agreed upon within the Eurosystem’s monetary policy framework. It helps to provide liquidity to those Italian banks that cannot rely on an internal model (IRB). Its role has become all the more important in the aftermath of the financial crisis relating to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The paper first outlines the Eurosystem’s collateral framework and describes Banca d’Italia’s ICAS in terms of architecture and governance. It then presents in detail the underlying statistical model, including the definition of default adopted, and the validation process for the statistical model and for the expert system. The paper concludes by providing data on the amount of collateral pledged with an ICAS rating and on the main features, including the probabilities of default, of the Italian non-financial companies rated by the system.