Credit Ratings
About NR QGrade
Objectives
- Credit enhancement for SME’s
- Dynamic risk monitoring for Banks
- Independent credit grading for Banks and Investors
- Institutional Investor participation
NR QGrade’s presence in the market is measured by replicability, and not by a one-off issuance – demonstrating that viable African SMEs can access lending and investment.
Services
- SME Credit Analytics
- Corporate Credit Analytics
- Credit Assessment Reports
- Techno Economic Viability Studies (TEV or Pre-Feasibility Studies)
Our Value Proposition
Stakeholder | Strategic Value |
|---|---|
| Banks & Lenders | Capital Efficiency: High-quality inputs for internal economic capital models and independent benchmarks to calibrate internal rating systems. |
| Investors | Structured Intelligence: Essential tools for analyzing complex transactions and rapid assessment models to increase deployment velocity. |
| SME Borrowers | Investment Readiness: Pre-scoring and “on the fly” real-time credit reports that empower businesses to access formal financing channels. |
Our Strategic Bottom Line
The Credit Grading & Assessment Committee
Martin is a senior risk and valuation specialist with broad experience across Europe, Asia and global emerging markets. He serves on the Committee, bringing deep corporate and financial markets expertise across both francophone and anglophone Africa. He has advised leading development banks and commercial banks on risk management, corporate structuring, balance sheet structuring, and capital optimisation. Earlier in his career, he held senior risk management positions at ING Group and Deutsche Bank, overseeing USD 14 billion in global credit exposures. He currently provides strategic direction and execution for Nex Rubica capital’s investment banking drive across Africa – dealing-regulators and government agencies in over 11 countries. He holds degrees in Financial Economics and Insurance & Risk Management
Michael is a senior financial services executive with over 30 years of experience in credit risk, prudential regulation, and financial market operations, including more than two decades in senior leadership roles overseeing complex credit portfolios and internal rating systems. He brings deep expertise in credit assessment, ratings methodology design, counterparty analysis, and regulatory capital frameworks across international banking platforms. As Managing Director and Head of Financial Markets Credit Risk Measurement at ING Bank N.V., London, he held global responsibility for credit risk across trading, structured finance, treasury, and derivatives portfolios. He led the development and governance of internal rating models under Basel II and III, ensuring robust capital adequacy and regulatory compliance. Serving on Senior Credit Committees and the Credit Model Approval Committee, he reviewed structured transactions, exposure limits, and risk-adjusted return frameworks.
His technical strengths include Probability of Default, Loss Given Default, and Exposure at Default modelling, stress testing, collateral management, and counterparty exposure measurement, combining quantitative discipline with sound credit judgement and strong governance oversight.
Sunil has built a distinguished career at the intersection of financial services risk management, credit ratings, and financial technology. He has held senior executive roles at Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Emerging Markets, Confluence Technologies and Thomson Reuters. Over more than two decades, he has accelerated the growth of risk analytics and asset valuation firms worldwide, combining deep business development expertise with hands-on leadership in shaping strategy for risk and ratings solutions.
Whilst serving as a Senior Director at S&P Emerging Markets, he oversaw coverage across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Earlier, at Thompson Reuters, he led regional expansion of the Global Risk Solution business across the UK, Benelux, and the Gulf, strengthening the franchise ahead of its acquisition by Vista. Since then he has held leadership roles in valuation and financial analytics businesses, including Confluence which was later acquired by Clearlake in a USD 3 Billion action. He holds a BSc in Mathematics & Finance and is a certified SFA Securities Representative.
Q&A on NR QGrade
The African growth story faces a systemic bottleneck centred on a $331 billion SME financing gap in sub-Saharan Africa. This disparity highlights the most critical challenge facing the continent’s private sector—the chronic lack of access to affordable, local-currency credit. Historically, African SMEs have been sidelined by traditional financiers who misinterpret the continent’s unique operational landscape as high-risk. This systemic risk aversion is driven by Information Asymmetry, Collateral Constraints, and Risk Mispricing fuelled by the absence of localized, data-driven credit risk management.
This misalignment ensures that the very businesses meant to drive Africa’s industrialization remain excluded from formal financing channels, creating an urgent need for a new paradigm in risk assessment.
These dynamics also presents an opportunity for NR QGrade as it represents a massive, untapped market for bespoke SME ratings that move beyond generic sovereign-linked assessments. By implementing specialized risk profiles that evaluate localized cash-flow patterns and supply-chain resilience, we bridge the information asymmetry currently inflating risk premiums. This evolution allows credit markets to accurately price local risk, transforming perceived volatility into quantifiable, manageable data.
Our leadership team brings over 80 years of collective market risk, credit risk and asset valuation experience across Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe, seamlessly blending global best practices with proven emerging market debt and equity strategies. Our edge is defined by:
- Institutional Reach: Direct executive-level access to over 30 financial institutions that control 80% of the banking sector in Africa and 50% in India.
- Corporate Access: Immediate connectivity to decision-makers across more than 100 listed blue-chip firms in Africa and India.
- Regulatory Depth: Established high-level relationships with governments and regulators in 15 key emerging markets across East, West and Southern Africa,
Global Network: Strong legacy partnerships with premier investment banks across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.
Corporate credit ratings in Africa have never truly taken off not because they lack value, but because the structure of African finance evolved in a way that made them non-essential. The constraints are systemic, path-dependent, and largely rational given how markets developed
In mature markets, ratings directly affect pricing, eligibility, and liquidity of loan and debt markets. Africa is different because:
- Ratings rarely reduce borrowing costs
- Do not unlock new investor classes on their own
- Do not substitute for collateral or guarantees
The NR QGrade is made to be:
- Embedded in transaction structures (loans, bonds, securitisations)
- Linked to concrete benefits (lower capital charges, investor eligibility)
- Scaled via pooled or programme-based issuance
- Aligned with DFIs and guarantee schemes
That is how ratings became relevant elsewhere — not as standalone opinions, but as market infrastructure.