S. Venkat Raman, former chief executive officer of regional rating agency CariCRIS, has made way for Wayne Dass, who took over the agency last month. - File

The nascent regional ratings agency CariCRIS has a new chief executive, Wayne Dass, successor to S. Venkat Raman who is heading back to his job at CRISIL in India.

CRISIL is a subsidiary of Standard and Poors, and India's largest credit-rating service. It acted as technical consultants to CariCRIS' start-up.

Dass has worked formerly with CMMB, a sudsidiary of Jamaica Money Market Brokers.

Last year, CariCRIS or Caribbean Information and Credit Rating Services Limited, completed some 15 ratings, covering corporations and sovereigns, a big stride in its first year of operation in 2005/06.

The company is planning to add credit-risk modelling to its suite of services.

Raman was also the agency's chief rating officer.

Big names

Its board comprises some of the biggest names in banking and finance across the region, including Caribbean Development Bank president Compton Bourne, central bankers Ewart Williams and Dr. Marion Williams, and Jamaica's Patrick Hylton, group managing director of National Commercial Bank.

Retired banker Terrence Martins is chairman.

CariCRIS, whose home is in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, was established in 2004.

Its first credit rating was in April 2005, six months into its start-up, while its first sovereign rating came exactly two years later.

Trinidad and Tobago got a CariAAA on both its local and foreign-exchange debt after a US$500 million bond issue.

The agency also covers The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Suriname, and a number of OECS states.