Case Study: a leading investment bank achieves greater efficiency in municipal credit analysis with S&P Global's PFAST

Investment bank gains efficiencies using tool to manage US municipal exposures

A leading investment bank worked with S&P Global to improve how its public finance credit risk team evaluated thousands of municipal issuers for wealth management clients. The team was spending too much time gathering data, had to frequently override its existing credit scores, and faced slow support, especially given that about 30% of its holdings were unrated cities, counties, and school districts.

S&P Global Market Intelligence implemented the Public Finance Assessment Scoring Tool (PFAST), an Excel-based automated credit scoring and data solution for municipal portfolios. The tool streamlined data collection, enabled faster scoring of issuers in minutes, supported scenario analysis, and improved transparency and coverage, helping the bank achieve substantial efficiency gains in credit analysis and surveillance.