Rating agency methods subject of congressional hearings

As lawmakers continue to probe problems that led to the subprime mortgage meltdown, a look at how the credit rating agencies assess structured finance products like mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations will be the subject of two hearings next week.
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a capital markets subcommittee hearing on Wednesday and the House Financial Services Committee’s capital markets subcommittee will follow suit on Thursday, the American Banker reported today.
Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, Lawrence White, an economics professor at New York University, Michael Kanef, the managing director of Moody’s Financial Services’s asset finance group, and Vickie Tillman, the executive vice president for credit market services at Standard & Poor’s will testify at the Senate Banking hearing.
Witnesses for the Financial Services hearing have not been announced.