Free trial

Secondary Menu Navigation anchor placeholder

This will not be visible to the end user. componentId=component_09ecb747d3c04dcd81d0453b7ab8aff9

Navigation heading:

What is Credit Catalyst?

Navigation short description:

What is Credit Catalyst?

The data and analytics platform for corporate credit risk.

Credit Catalyst pulls data from Orbis, widely acknowledged as the leading entity database, into a purpose-built credit platform to help you identify risk and make better decisions quicker. It helps you onboard new counterparties and continue to monitor them for risk factors.

Combining your knowledge of your counterparties with our extensive entity data and risk metrics, Credit Catalyst gives you:

  • Financial data on companies in a globally standardized format
  • Automated spreading
  • Financial strength metrics for a huge company universe – even if there’s very limited financial data available for a company
  • Corporate structures for parent/group analysis
  • Workflow and automation tools

How does Credit Catalyst work?

Click to view the whole infographic

Secondary Menu Navigation anchor placeholder

This will not be visible to the end user. componentId=component_f18840c762dc4c90af014ebaf19742d9

Navigation heading:

How Credit Catalyst can help you

Navigation short description:

How Credit Catalyst can help you

Credit Catalyst can save you time because it can automate much of your credit analysis process. It also gives you a centralized location to store and manage your credit data in structured formats. It gives you:

  • A single interface combining key internal and external data, analytics and workflow options
  • Extensive coverage of companies
  • Financial data that’s internationally comparable
  • Analytics that are easy to interpret and help you spot risk quickly
  • Transparent financial strength indicators
  • Alerts that monitor and also trigger actions
  • Automated scoring – based on your own risk model

Standardized data for ease of use

We deliver standardized financial reports so you can compare and benchmark companies across borders. And it’s not just financial data that’s standardized – you can look at reports in one language, use the currency of your choice, and even activity classifications such as SIC codes are harmonised, so you can segment your portfolio accurately.

Scoring using the risk module

The integral risk module means you can create a scorecard that automatically rates any company you view in Credit Catalyst. The module is flexible and you can adjust the weight given to various elements and set conditional parameters. You can include quantitative, qualitative data in your model and combine data from Credit Catalyst with your own knowledge of a company, to set recommended credit limits.

View transparent risk scores

You can create benchmark values, compare companies’ financial health and measure your own internal ratings against them. Variables include probability of default, propensity to become bankrupt, suggested credit limit, plus other predictive indicators and risk scores. There are three key scores:

Financial score

The financial score assesses the creditworthiness of a company, grading companies based on how well they can meet their financial commitments. It’s a probability of default model, based on the analysis of financial statements. It’s a through-the-cycle probability of default (TTC PD). The output is tied to the closing date of a set of accounts, it also analyses key financial ratios, which are scored independently. There are four categories:


  • Healthy companies
  • Adequate companies
  • Vulnerable companies
  • Risky companies

The model also includes the probability of default which reflects the degree of certainty (in quantitative terms) that the company will go into default in the next 18 to 24 months, a confidence level, and a recommended credit limit.

Qualitative score

Detailed financial data is simply not available for many companies so we also offer the qualitative score. This score measures the creditworthiness of a company based on non-financial information such as strength of shareholders, country specific risks, longevity of the company, legal form and sector-specific risks. The model also includes a confidence level and qualitative credit limit.

Reactive score

This adjusted score is created using modelling that’s been adapted to be more sensitive to the economic environment by taking specific sector and regional factors into account. It uses the financial score to reflect current creditworthiness with several quantitative variables, such as sector and macroeconomic factors, to forecast the financials of a company based on ‘impact scenarios’. These impact scenarios are reviewed regularly to offer a score that is more sensitive to market conditions.

Early warning credit indicators

Sourcing stories from a range of newswires and news aggregators, we then apply machine learning to create a new Sentiment Score based on negative news. This powerful application of AI is not only an efficient news filter, but also delivers valuable early warning indicators. Our research shows that credit sentiment scores increase, six to eight months before major credit events.

Incorporate Cybersecurity into Risk Management Workflows

Use BitSight’s industry-leading cybersecurity analytics to understand the level of cybersecurity risk posed by your third parties. BitSight’s cybersecurity analytics provide insight into an organization’s cybersecurity performance, which can be used to: 

  • Assess the cybersecurity risk associated with key clients

  • Enhance the client due diligence and risk management process. Strong cybersecurity risk management practices often demonstrate broader managerial effectiveness. 


Fast, automated financial spreading – combining artificial intelligence and the human touch

Our new spreading tool harnesses the power of machine learning, combined with a human expert to check the output, for super-fast and accurate financial spreads.

Simply upload the financial data in pdf format and get the output delivered seamlessly either in your own ‘private Orbis zone’ or your Catalyst portfolio.

The company’s financials are spread into the standard Orbis financial format, so you can:

  • compare the company to all the others in your portfolio - and the Orbis database
  • get all the financial strength scores and metrics for your company
  • include the company in your risk assessments, scorecards and dashboards

This tool is powered by the award-winning QUIQspread™ from Moody’s Analytics. The tool works with Orbis, Credit Catalyst and Procurement Catalyst. It’s ideal if you have financials for a company in more detail than are available in Orbis, or a more recent version has been sent to you directly.

Look at your portfolio from different viewpoints

Credit Catalyst has a range of ‘views’, including the dashboard view and the counterparty view, so you can look at your portfolio or individual counterparties from different perspectives. The dashboards are simple to customize and are focused on helping you spot risk quickly.

Credit catalyst dashboard

Flexible data options

As well as viewing and analyzing data within Credit Catalyst, you can easily access it through your own in-house or third-party systems. We offer contemporary API solutions, plus our own purpose-built connectors, combined with high levels of support from our customer success teams.