Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday he believed Serbia would get investment-grade credit ratings from both Fitch and Moody's next year at the latest.

The U.S. market regulator charged and fined six major ratings agencies on Sept. 3, including Moody's, S&P and Fitch, over what it called "significant recordkeeping failures."

South Africa, whose debt is rated as "junk" or non-investment grade by credit rating agencies Fitch and S&P, has escaped a third junk rating from Moody's which suggested the country's economic outlook was set to improve under its new President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Moody's Corp has agreed to pay nearly $864 million to settle with U.S. federal and state authorities over its ratings of risky mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Jan. 13.