CountryRisk.io is an AI-native platform for economic research, country risk analysis, and sovereign risk intelligence. Founded in December 2015 in London, UK, the platform helps organisations understand, quantify, and manage country risk using transparent models, trusted data, and AI-powered analysis. It covers 240+ countries and delivered through a modern web platform and APIs.

Our mission is to help organisations make better country risk decisions. We achieve this by alleviating users from manual, time-consuming tasks through automation and AI, and by super-charging the domain knowledge of our users through powerful analytical tools, comprehensive data, and access to expert community insights.

CountryRisk.io serves banks and insurance companies (economic research and country risk analysis teams), asset managers and investment firms, export credit agencies, central banks and ministries of finance, multinational corporations (treasury and strategic planning teams), fintech companies, consulting firms, compliance professionals managing AML and regulatory risk, public-sector organisations, and advisors that need reliable country risk insights.

The platform supports investment and asset allocation decisions, credit and underwriting decisions, AML compliance, sovereign risk assessment, supply-chain planning, strategic market entry or exit decisions, and board-level and policy reporting.

What decisions can CountryRisk.io support?

It reduces manual research, improves consistency in country risk assessments, increases transparency, and accelerates decision-making across investment, compliance, and strategic workflows.

Traditional providers focus on static reports or black-box scores. CountryRisk.io is a complete research workbench that combines content with advanced AI tools, workflow automation, and customisable analytics. Rather than just delivering information, it provides an end-to-end platform that helps teams research faster, analyse deeper, and communicate insights more effectively.

What makes CountryRisk.io different from traditional research providers?

No. CountryRisk.io is a technology and data platform, not a traditional research house. Instead of maintaining a team of in-house economists producing static reports, it uses AI and automated data pipelines that continuously scout trusted sources—including the IMF, World Bank, FATF, leading economic intelligence providers, and global news outlets—for the latest data, publications, and developments. The platform then synthesises, structures, and contextualises this information so that your analysts can form their own views faster and with better evidence. Think of CountryRisk.io as the workbench that empowers your experts, not a provider that tells them what to think.

Does CountryRisk.io employ economists who write research reports?

The analysis comes from you—supported by our technology. CountryRisk.io aggregates and harmonises data from dozens of authoritative and primary sources, applies AI to generate draft narratives, risk summaries, and alerts, and places all of this in a collaborative workspace your team controls. You choose the indicators, set the weights, adjust the models, and publish the conclusions. Our role is to eliminate the manual drudgery of data collection, cleaning, and monitoring so your team spends its time on judgment and insight rather than spreadsheet maintenance.

If you don’t write your own research, where does the analysis come from?

Traditional providers rely on a fixed roster of analysts whose output is limited by capacity and publication schedules. CountryRisk.io monitors hundreds of data feeds and news sources around the clock, flags material changes in real time, and generates explainable, citation-ready drafts the moment something shifts. This means broader coverage, faster turnaround, full transparency into sources and methodology, and—crucially—the flexibility for every organisation to tailor the analysis to its own risk appetite rather than accepting a one-size-fits-all view.

How does an AI-and-data-driven approach compare to traditional economist-led research?

It is both. CountryRisk.io delivers structured country risk data while also providing a full software platform to analyse, contextualise, and operationalise that data.

Is CountryRisk.io a data provider or a software platform?

CountryRisk.io is independent of any rating issuer or commercial credit rating agency, free of conflicts of interest. Methodologies are completely transparent—you can see exactly how you arrived at your final rating. There is no committee that could override your results. The open-book approach allows you to understand and verify every step of the analysis. CountryRisk.io is not a rating agency and does not provide sovereign ratings.

What makes CountryRisk.io independent and transparent?

No. CountryRisk.io is not a credit rating agency and is not regulated by ESMA or the SEC. It is an independent technology platform that provides analytical tools, data, and methodologies for country and sovereign risk assessment. This independence allows greater flexibility and transparency while avoiding conflicts of interest.

Are you a rating agency? Are you regulated?

AI is embedded across the platform: AI-powered research assistants help users rapidly become experts on complex topics through conversational interfaces and intelligent synthesis; automated content generation creates country risk narratives, summaries, and reports; smart data management harmonises information from multiple sources; predictive analytics identify emerging risks and trends; and natural language processing enables contextual search across internal and external sources with full citation traceability.

How does CountryRisk.io use artificial intelligence?

Yes. AI outputs are grounded in underlying data and indicators, ensuring transparency and traceability. Every AI-generated insight shows exactly where information comes from, allowing you to verify and audit results.

No. AI supports analysts by reducing manual work and accelerating insight generation. The goal is not to replace country risk analysts but to empower them—giving experts more time to be creative and thoughtful about their analyses. Final judgment always remains with the user.

Does AI replace analysts or decision-makers?

Yes. The AI is transparent, grounded in trusted sources, and fully traceable. Every insight shows exactly where information comes from, allowing verification and audit. Full audit trails are maintained, suitable for regulated environments.

Can I trust AI-generated insights for serious research and compliance?

No. Client data remains isolated and is not used to train shared AI models.

Is proprietary client data used to train AI models?

The AI Assistant is an intelligent chat interface within the Insights platform. You can ask questions—whether you need the latest sovereign risk scores, summaries of IMF or World Bank reports, or insights on debt restructuring—and the Assistant instantly finds, analyses, and presents the most relevant information. It helps automate complex research by combining multiple data and document sources, and supports predefined or custom prompts for structured workflows.

The AI-powered research assistant allows you to become an expert on complex macroeconomic and geopolitical topics in hours rather than days. Through a conversational interface you can explore topics, receive auto-generated summaries and synthesis, and ask contextual questions across your research sources. The system provides citation-ready outputs with full traceability to source materials.

How does the ‘Become an Expert, Fast’ feature work?

The News Research Tool is part of the AI Assistant that instantly delivers and summarises the latest global developments from trusted international sources. Simply ask for the latest news on any country or topic, and within seconds the AI retrieves the most recent updates with concise summaries. You can fine-tune queries by specifying time frames (yesterday, last week, past month), saving hours of manual research.

The Data Analyst feature brings data retrieval, analysis, and publication-ready charts together inside CountryRisk.io Insights. You can ask for specific indicators (such as US Treasury yields) and the system fetches data directly through CountryData.io, then generates charts that automatically adhere to your corporate style guide. The entire workflow—from raw data to polished visualisations—happens in minutes.

How do you use AI Agents in country risk analysis?

Specialised AI agents (called ‘helpers’) break down complex tasks into distinct sub-tasks assigned to specifically trained agents. They continuously update their knowledge base, assess material changes, update sovereign rating models, and write summary reports—all within controlled guardrails to ensure quality. The long-term goal is to generate high-quality country risk reports by code while empowering, not replacing, analysts.

The Research Workbench is a comprehensive platform for economic research and country risk teams. It provides end-to-end support for the entire research lifecycle—from risk monitoring and ideation to research creation and report publishing—featuring advanced AI tools, seamless integration with premium third-party content, workflow automation, team collaboration capabilities, and customisable country risk scoring frameworks.

DaaS offerings include: AML Country Risk Scores (comprehensive anti-money laundering risk assessments with global, EU, and US-specific versions); Bespoke Country Risk Scores (customised risk models tailored to your organisation’s specific exposure, industry, and risk appetite); Alternative Data Access (curated, structured access to hard-to-get geopolitical, regulatory, ESG, and economic datasets).

What Data-as-a-Service offerings do you provide?

CountryData.io is a dedicated data platform that makes country-level data easy to access, clean, and integrate into workflows, research, and risk systems. It transforms data often trapped in PDFs, spreadsheets, or unstructured formats into structured, API-ready data for analytics, modelling, and compliance. It can be used standalone or integrated with CountryRisk.io Insights, and utilises Model Context Protocol (MCP) for seamless data access across tools.

Experts found that data preparation and cleaning often consume 80% of analyst time, leaving only 20% for actual insight generation. CountryData.io was built to shift this balance by eliminating manual data wrangling and letting teams focus on analysis, model building, and decision-making.

CountryData.io includes data from dozens of structured sources: IMF World Economic Outlook macroeconomic indicators, FATF and FSRB AML and regulatory classifications, OECD and EU regulatory lists, ESG and specialty indicators from UN agencies, food security, risk indices, and other niche datasets. It covers numerical, categorical, and boolean data—all harmonised for analytics.

What types of data are available through CountryData.io?

The platform was purpose-built to convert unstructured or poorly formatted regulatory or risk data into usable formats. For example, it quickly transformed the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) risk classifications into a structured dataset with consistent ISO codes and metadata—usable via API in minutes instead of through manual extraction.

How does CountryData.io help with difficult or unstructured data?

The AML Data Package is a curated, structured dataset delivered through the CountryData.io API that includes key country risk lists and classifications from globally recognised sources (e.g., EU High-Risk Third Countries, FATF listings, OECD transparency ratings). It is designed for compliance workflows, screening systems, and risk scoring models.

What is the AML Data Package on CountryData.io?

CountryData.io integrates with tools like xlwings Lite, enabling users to pull data directly into Excel while accessing powerful analytics through Python (e.g., Pandas, DuckDB, Statsmodels) inside spreadsheets. Data can also be integrated into BI platforms, dashboards, and analytics workflows via API, combining familiar interfaces with automated data retrieval.

How does CountryData.io support Excel and BI tool workflows?

Yes. CountryData.io monitors data sources for updates and continuously harmonises, cleans, and republishes updated datasets, allowing users to rely on current and accurate data.

Absolutely. By making structured country risk and compliance-relevant data available (e.g., AML, tax cooperation lists, sanctions), CountryData.io supports due diligence, KYC/AML screening, and risk reporting processes.

Can CountryData.io help with regulatory compliance?

CountryRisk.io offers: Sovereign Risk Scores (measuring a country’s ability and willingness to repay its debts); ESG Sovereign Risk Scores (extending the sovereign score with environmental and social risk factors such as climate change, healthcare quality, and equality); AML Country Risk Scores (quantitatively-derived ratings for Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing risks); Supply Chain Country Risk Scores (monitoring social, environmental, and governance standards in supply chain countries); and Bespoke Country Risk Scores (fully customised models tailored to your organisation’s specific needs).

What types of risk scores does CountryRisk.io offer?

Risk scores are built using transparent methodologies that aggregate multiple indicators into thematic pillars, with clear weighting and documentation. All methodologies are documented and designed to be defensible for internal governance and regulators.

Shadow Ratings show the distribution of sovereign ratings for each country based on multiple models, allowing comparison with ratings from the major rating agencies. This gives advance insight into potential rating changes and provides a more comprehensive view of sovereign credit risk by showing where different methodologies converge or diverge.

Yes. Clients can select specific risk variables, adjust weightings to reflect their risk appetite, choose from multiple frameworks (economic, political, ESG, regulatory, security), configure geographic coverage, define entirely new risk dimensions, and integrate scores into strategic planning, investment screening, and governance processes.

Can organisations customise the methodology?

Update frequency ranges from daily to monthly depending on the dataset, data type, and client configuration. Market-sensitive data can update in real-time or intraday; regulatory and policy information updates as changes occur. Enterprise clients can customise update frequencies. AML country risk scores are also updated after the FATF plenary sessions. 

In today’s regulatory environment, AML compliance is both a legal obligation and strategic imperative. Non-compliance can result in substantial fines and reputational damage. AML country risk scores help financial institutions, fintechs, and corporations proactively manage compliance challenges, meet regulatory requirements (including EU AMLD, US FinCEN, and other frameworks), and maintain trust with stakeholders and regulators.

CountryRisk.io provides AML-focused country risk scores aligned with global, EU, and US regulatory expectations. AI-generated narratives explain why a country’s AML risk is high or changing, and all AML risk scores and narratives are available via robust APIs.

What is CountryRisk.io’s AML country risk offering?

Unlike static, publicly available indices, the AML scores offer frequent updates (monthly vs. annual), regional customisation (global, EU-specific, US-specific frameworks), AI-generated risk narratives with regulatory rationale, seamless API integration into existing compliance systems, and the ability to create custom scoring models aligned with specific operational needs.

How are the AML risk scores different from free alternatives?

Absolutely. The platform uses AI to automatically generate dynamic country risk narratives and explanations that satisfy regulatory requirements, save analyst time, and provide transparency for internal and external stakeholders.

Can you help with verbal rationales for AML reporting?

Yes. Clients can tailor AML models to reflect geography, exposure, and internal risk appetite.

Compliance teams use CountryRisk.io to ensure AML regulatory compliance with automated risk assessments, generate defensible documentation for audits and regulators, monitor regulatory changes across jurisdictions, integrate country risk into transaction monitoring systems, and maintain up-to-date risk profiles that satisfy FATF guidelines and regional requirements.

Multiple access methods are provided: an intuitive web-based dashboard for interactive analysis and visualisation; robust REST APIs for programmatic access and system integration; Excel plug-ins for familiar spreadsheet workflows; and embeddable components for custom applications.

How do I access CountryRisk.io data and services?

The REST API enables integration of risk scores, country data, and analytics into your own tools and workflows. 

Tell me more about the CountryRisk.io and CountryData.io API.

Yes. The platform is designed for seamless integration with well-documented APIs, flexible data formats.

Will CountryRisk.io integrate with our existing systems?

Yes. The platform is delivered via secure cloud infrastructure.

Visit www.countryrisk.io to create an account. You must be at least 18 years of age. You will need a valid email address and reliable contact details. The first registered user from your organisation becomes the account administrator, responsible for managing the account, inviting additional authorised users, and assigning roles and permissions. Automated registrations via bots are not permitted.

It integrates macro and country risk into credit assessment, capital allocation, and portfolio monitoring workflows.

How does CountryRisk.io support bank risk teams?

Yes. Many banks use CountryRisk.io alongside internal models to reduce manual work and improve consistency.

Can it complement existing internal models?

It provides timely country risk insights that support asset allocation, portfolio construction, and macro overlays.

How does CountryRisk.io help asset managers?

Portfolio managers use the platform to assess country exposure, inform asset allocation decisions with forward-looking risk intelligence, monitor geopolitical and macroeconomic events, generate client-ready reports and risk commentary, and conduct scenario analysis for stress testing.

How can portfolio managers use CountryRisk.io?

It supports macro monitoring, sovereign risk assessment, policy analysis, and investor communications.

How does CountryRisk.io support governments and central banks?

Yes. CountryRisk.io—and specifically SovTech—supports sovereign risk analysis, debt sustainability analysis, and long-term planning use cases.

Is the platform suitable for debt management offices?

It links country risk to revenue, supply chains, and operational exposure for better strategic planning.

How does CountryRisk.io help corporate strategy teams?

Multinational corporations leverage the platform for treasury operations (assessing macro risk exposure, supporting hedging and capital deployment), strategic planning (macroeconomic scenarios, market entry evaluation), supply chain resilience (monitoring supplier location risks, diversification planning), and operational risk management (tracking political stability, regulatory changes, and security threats).

How can multinational corporations use the platform?

Yes. Dashboards and narratives are designed for executive and board audiences.

Yes. Country risk insights support supplier location decisions and disruption monitoring.

Is it useful for supply chain risk management?

CountryRisk.io is an independent online platform for rating sovereign risk. As of July 2020, the latest version systematically integrates Environmental and Social factors into the sovereign risk model. This makes ESG sovereign risk the platform’s default rating framework.

Our platform is open to all interested members of the public, from central bankers and institutional analysts to corporations, students and private individuals. This open-door policy gives those who use the platform access to a uniform, holistic, transparent rating framework and facilitates the exchange of country risk views among our community members. 

We offer several indices for standard, ESG and anti-money laundering (AML) sovereign risk. For reference, we also include the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Index.

Our platform also includes curated country reports and news. This enables you to simplify your workflow by searching for relevant articles within CountryRisk.io instead of using a separate search engine.

Yes, you will continue to have access to the original sovereign risk model. We’ve included an option to switch to the ESG version of the model before you begin a rating. However, if you decide you want to rate a country using the standard sovereign risk model after you’ve already started using the ESG version, you’d need to begin again. 

That said, our standard sovereign risk model has always included governance risk factors. The difference between the standard and ESG-integrated rating versions is that the latter explicitly includes environmental and social factors. 

Is the standard model for assessing sovereign and country risk still available for those who don’t want to include Governance and Social factors?

While working as country risk analysts, our founders, Jenny Asuncion and Bernhard Obenhuber, grew increasingly frustrated with credit rating agencies’ (CRA) lack of transparency and decided there must be a better way to assess sovereign risk. So, they created one. And CountryRisk.io is the result. 

Our founders were also motivated by the European sovereign debt crisis. Regulators around the world began calling on CRAs to make their methodologies more transparent and on financial institutions to reduce their dependence on CRA ratings. All of this told our founders that the time was right to put their extensive sovereign and country risk experience into building a transparent online rating platform of exceptional quality. 

CountryRisk.io was founded by Jenny Asuncion and Bernhard Obenhuber. They both have decades of experience in finance as country risk analysts, economists and investment managers. 

Patrick Kranzlmüller and Axel Swoboda are the IT wizards who brought CountryRisk.io to online life. Each remains integral to the platform’s ongoing development. 

We choose our advisors based on their areas and extent of expertise. We appointed Nicholas Turner, Elie Heriard Dubreuil and Moritz Kraemer for their competences in AML & sanctions, sovereign ESG and sovereign credit risk, respectively.

Having led Deutsche Bank’s risk, legal and compliance departments, we selected Hugo Banziger to advise on our strategy. Meanwhile, Alexandra Engel’s wealth of expertise in legal and global regulatory affairs made her an ideal choice as legal advisor.

Who are your advisors, and how were they selected?

Our founders have financed CountryRisk.io from the very beginning, and continue to do so without outside investment.

The range of people who use our platform has evolved and expanded since our founding in 2016. As such, it's no longer limited to analysts from financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and asset management firms, who want to perform their own independent country risk analyses. 

Today, we count economists working in central banks, finance ministries and other public offices among those who use our platform. Increasingly, consulting companies representing clients in cross-border projects, as well as debt management offices from ministries or government treasuries, are also joining our community. And, thanks to the addition of AML country risk scores to our platform, many compliance departments of financial institutions and corporations are now also getting value from our platform.

In short, anyone with a keen interest in country risk analysis is welcome to join our thriving community.

There are several ways to use CountryRisk.io:

Banks and other financial institutions use our platform to model their sovereign risk exposures and fine-tune individual country credit exposures. Similarly, banks use the AML country risk score as part of their compliance programs. 

Investment managers use CountryRisk.io to analyse sovereign risks for new and existing investments. Many investment managers also use it to construct fundamental credit and equity benchmarks.

Corporations use our platform to understand the risks involved in investing in a new market (e.g., foreign direct investment).

Finance ministries and central banks use CountryRisk.io to assess the potential impact of modifying or introducing policies --and the ensuing changes in their forecasts -- on their sovereign risk rating.

Teaching tool. Our platform is also an excellent tool for teaching applied macroeconomics at a university level.

How can members of CountryRisk.io use the platform?

Our platform is free to use. Meanwhile, our premium paid package gives you access to our sovereign, ESG sovereign and AML sovereign risk scores.

Our conviction that country risk ratings are a public good is what drove us to make our rating platform freely accessible to everyone. We also believe that a combination of multiple views on a country’s risk is superior to that of a single analyst. Requiring individuals to share their ratings analyses and datasets instead of charging a fee enables a community view to emerge. In turn, this allows all of our users—whether or not they have a premium account—to see how their own ratings compare with the community average and overall rating dispersion. 

So, even without a premium account, you will continue to have free access to our country ratings. However, if you want to keep your analysis and dataset private, you can sign up for a paid premium account.

You can find more details on our packages here.

How much does it cost to use CountryRisk.io?

Privacy is very important to us. You can find our privacy statement here.

CountryRisk.io isn’t a rating agency, and we don’t issue ratings. Instead, CountryRisk.io is an open, online ratings platform that everyone is welcome to use. The platform displays both draft and completed ratings, and are available to every member of CountryRisk.io.

We are not regulated, nor do we seek regulatory approval from the ESMA or SEC. That said, we do offer support to private sector companies in the regulatory approval process for credit risk models.

Are you a rating agency? Are you regulated by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) or the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)?

Yes. With a premium account, you can decide which rating analyses and datasets you want to keep private and which to share with the CountryRisk.io community. 

Yes. With a premium account, you can share your rating analysis and datasets only with members of a defined group. 

Can I share my rating analysis with others?

You can’t adjust the public versions of the sovereign risk models to which everyone has access. However, we can build a bespoke version of the ESG or standard sovereign risk models just for you. This means that we can adjust the platform to meet your institution’s specific objectives. However, the results of a customised model may not be fully comparable with the ratings of our wider community. 

You can find our rating methodology here.

Where can I find your rating methodology?

a foreign currency (FCY) letter-grade rating and a rating outlook

a local currency (LCY) letter-grade rating and a rating outlook

a transfer and convertibility risk (T&C) rating

You can find the definition of each rating in the rating methodology section of our documentation.

What rating results does the analysis produce?

Yes, the letter grade ratings of CountryRisk.io are broadly comparable to those of these credit rating agencies.

Are CountryRisk.io ratings comparable to those of Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s or FitchRatings?

You can email us at contact@countryrisk.io

How can I provide feedback on the rating methodology?

No. We apply one rating model to all countries, regardless of economic structure, stage of development, region or size. In general, we believe that there’s no good reason to apply different models to different groups of countries. 

That said, we also believe that some indicators are not relevant to all countries, and so we exclude them where appropriate. Specifically, we exclude indicators that assess a country’s external liquidity—such as import coverage—where its currency is classified as a reserve currency or is frequently traded. This is because these countries tend to issue debt in their own currency. As such, due to the strength of their institutions and other mitigating qualities, these nations are highly unlikely to renege on their obligations. 

Do you differentiate between developed, developing and frontier countries?

We review our rating methodology annually based on inputs from external advisors and feedback from our community. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the model will change every year. We expect most changes to be minor, such as the addition of new or modified indicators and adjustment factors. 

How often will the rating methodology change?

No. We will decide in the future whether or not having our methodology officially audited would be valuable.

It creates a more in-depth, comprehensive picture of the country.

From a credit risk perspective, ESG factors capture the rising costs of environmental catastrophes and social instability factors that can have a significant impact on a country’s economic strength and government finances.

Why do you integrate environmental, social and governance factors into country and sovereign risk ratings?

Yes, the ESG country risk model uses the same approach as the standard model. 

Does the ESG country risk model also follow a scoring-based approach?

Each Environmental, Social and Governance section weighs 10%, yielding a combined weight of 30% in the full ESG country risk model.

What do the Environmental, Social and Governance factors weigh in the model, individually and collectively?

At CountryRisk.io, we focus on measures of a government’s ability and willingness to repay foreign currency bond obligations. In that sense, it’s a classic sovereign credit rating. The outcome is still a standard letter rating that summarises the ability and willingness of the sovereign borrower to repay its foreign and local debt obligations.

In contrast, the SDG Index measures progress towards meeting the 17 SDGs. Investment company RobecoSAM says, “By focusing on ESG factors such as ageing, competitiveness and environmental risks—which are long-term in nature—our country sustainability analysis offers a view into a country’s strengths and weaknesses that are not typically covered by rating agencies.” 

How do you interpret your results, and how do they differ from other ESG indices?

Yes. The key determinants of debt sustainability are: net wealth (i.e. debt minus public assets), new debt creation or primary deficit, nominal economic growth, inflation and the cost of servicing debt.

Net wealth: Environmental resources are an enviable source of wealth.

Primary deficit: Environmental disasters can lead to substantial costs for the government (e.g. Fukushima) that will weigh on the fiscal account and potentially lead to higher debt levels. At the same time, environmental pollution leads to higher health care costs and lower government revenues.

Economic growth: Capital growth and productivity are the key drivers of economic growth. Many of the ESG factors capture human capital and productivity (e.g. education).

Debt servicing cost: The cost of debt is a function of the factors listed above. Nevertheless, governance indicators (e.g. the rule of law) are important determinants of the risk premium. Investors will demand higher compensation for extending money to a country if (all things being equal concerning the above factors) its institutional framework is weak.

Can one look at the ESG indicators within the context of debt sustainability?

We source our data principally from the IMF, United Nations and World Bank. We also use additional data providers for specific risk factors. For instance, Notre Dame University provides data on countries’ environmental vulnerabilities, while the Fund for Peace releases information about the fragility of states measured along various dimensions.

Poor data quality and irregular data releases have been key stumbling blocks in integrating environmental and social factors into risk assessments. These issues limit the use of many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. While patchy data are still prevalent in many areas, there is a strong international commitment—with financial resources—to improving statistics. As the principal driver of the SDGs, the United Nations operationalised the 17 goals by defining concrete targets and respective indicators. And, importantly for research, data access has become easier through API and bulk downloads.

Where do you source your data? What are the main challenges?

Integrating ESG factors adds much more granularity than you’d get from looking only at the standard country risk indicators. We find this to be especially valuable when it comes to higher-risk countries, where ESG factors give a more comprehensive picture of risk drivers. In addition, for those typically referred to as the “least developed countries”, ESG factors such as health, education and governance are even more important to future economic development.

How do the results of the ESG model differ from the standard country risk rating model?

The co-founders of CountryRisk.io believe that the existing ESG sovereign model adequately captures each sovereign’s risk of not repaying its debt obligations.

However, a credible benchmark that fully and accurately captures this risk has yet to emerge. So, in the spirit of making sovereign ratings a public good, we welcome our community’s inputs to improving the quality and robustness of our platform’s existing framework. In turn, such inputs could influence the model’s future evolution.

Another way the model could change is in how we define the timeframe in which the effects of environmental and social factors could ultimately weigh on the sovereign’s repayment capacity. Although assessing a sovereign’s rating usually accounts for an economic cycle (roughly defined as eighteen months to five years), environmental and social factors generally affect longer time periods, in part because the effects of some ESG policies take time to reveal themselves.

Therefore, social and environmental indicators may not always be compatible with traditional sovereign credit indicators. We are exploring the time element within the context of sovereign credit assessment and will adjust our analytical framework as required.

Will the ESG sovereign risk model change over time?

The ESG Index Builder lets you construct your own ESG index without the hassle of data sourcing, cleaning and aggregation—just choose from a long list of ESG indicators and let the tool crunch the numbers. The ESG Index Builder also showcases many of our competencies, from data analysis to building interactive dashboards. 

The CountryRisk.io Lab develops and tests various tools. Sometimes, we have ideas for new models and applications that we want to test with our community before we integrate them into the main platform. The Lab is open to the public, and you should regard its prototypes as not being fully production-ready. We are always eager to receive ideas for the Lab from our community. 

CountryRisk.io developed its AML sovereign risk score in 2018 following a request from a prominent Luxembourg-based insurance company, which at that time was looking for such an index. CountryRisk.io’s co-founders and IT developers then created a model and front-end prototype to showcase in Luxembourg. That model was extremely well received, especially for its comprehensive use of data, risk analysis, results and interface design. 

Of course, the model’s AML sovereign risk scores reflect a different dimension of risk to those of our traditional model (i.e. not the sovereign’s ability to repay its debt obligations). Nevertheless, our co-founders understood that the model was true to our company’s spirit of analysing sovereign risk. So, following some market research that revealed a strong demand for such a ranking of countries, we further developed the AML sovereign risk score and rolled it out for all of our community members in late 2018. 

Why did you start the AML sovereign risk score?

There are 240 jurisdictions within the AML risk score universe. 

How many countries are covered in the AML sovereign risk score?

We source data from a wide range of reputable sources. To find out more about our data sources and how we determine our scores, take a look at our methodology. 

We update our scores on a monthly basis, or on an ad-hoc basis if important new data is released.

Like the other models on the CountryRisk.io platform, we review the AML sovereign risk model annually with input from experts in the AML and sanctions field.

How often do you review and update the underlying model?

The current version doesn’t allow you to override the results. However, we are working on an updated design to allow individuals and corporate users to do so based on their own risk assessment or ranking of countries. 

For proper governance, this new version will include a process for supplying a justification for all overrides.

Can I override the AML sovereign risk score?

That depends on several factors. If you use the platform’s default dataset, or if you have your own dataset ready to upload and you know the country well, it should take around 20 to 40 minutes to complete the rating process. 

We encourage individual, public and corporate users to use their own datasets and forecasts on CountryRisk.io.

We believe that the entire community benefits from such specialised inputs, should you choose to share them.  

Can I provide my own datasets and forecasts?

No. You can only delete ratings that are still in “draft” status. 

“Draft” status allows you to continue working on the rating. You finalise the process as “completed” by adding a rating outlook and stating the key risk and mitigating factors that underlie the final rating. 

When you finalise the rating as “completed,” it becomes part of the community average and can no longer be changed.

What’s the difference between “draft” and “completed” status?

We used to require our members to provide rating and outlook rationales to complete a rating. In early 2020, we decided to make this optional, in order to allow those who don’t have time to write an extensive analysis of their rating to complete and share it with the rest of the community.

However, you should bear in mind that the rating and outlook rationales represent a verbal portrait of your rating summary, and so they should highlight the key risk factors that support your analysis. As such, they also help other users to understand your rating assessment. So, we continue to encourage our community members to share their arguments for the ratings and outlooks they assign to the countries they assess.

Why do I have to provide a rating and outlook rationale?

FAQs