Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation started on its website a free management self-diagnosis service for SMEs. This service enables SMEs to easily examine their managerial conditions. CRD Association developed the system by utilizing the accumulated financial data.
The Bank of Japan held a forum to discuss the possibilities and problems of the securitization market. This report shows that credit scoring is useful to assess the likelihood of default more accurately if it is used to screen the loan assets of SMEs for securitization.
On May 28, an interim report on new corporate finance was released by the subcommittee of the Industrial Finance Group of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Industrial Structure Council. The subcommittee mentions as a challenge for the future the utilization of the credit risk database in a new area, like liquidation of securities, and proposes to reinforce such database infrastructure.
Japan Finance Corporation for Small and Medium Enterprises (CRD member) started operations to support securitization of SME loans on July 1. The corporation is scheduled to use the CRD score as the measure of creditworthiness when purchasing SME loan assets for securitization from banks.
On July 2, 2004, Rating and Investment Information, Inc. (R&I) announced the preliminary rating of large-area collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) covering Miyagi, Wakayama, Tottori and Shimane prefectures. CRD Model 1 was used as the measure of creditworthiness in the public offering of CLOs and in the rating of the securities. This is the first time to use CRD on a full scale in the securitization of SMEs' securitization, promising field for the future.