Google Trends provides access to a largely unfiltered sample of actual search requests made to Google.

It’s anonymized, because no one is personally identified. It is also categorized, i.e. determining the topic for a search query, and aggregated, i.e. grouped together. This way it displays interest in a particular topic from around the globe or down to city-level geography.

Google Trends normalizes search data to make comparisons between terms easier. Search results are normalized to the time and location of a query by the following process: Each data point is divided by the total searches of the geography and time range it represents to compare relative popularity. Otherwise, places with the most search volume would always be ranked highest. Different regions that show the same search interest for a term don’t always have the same total search volumes.

Many people don’t bother typing in an address like https://www.scoperatings.com/ in full to get to this website. If you use a Chrome browser, all you have to do is write “scope ratings” and then go to the website you are looking for with one click. That is why the data from Google Trends is interesting to find out in which countries the Berlin rating agency is searched.

As the evaluation on February 5, 2021 shows, Scope Ratings are mainly sought in Hungary.

Scope Ratings is commissioned by the Hungarian Central Bank to carry out the ratings of the applying issuers and the bonds to be issued.

That was back in 2019. “Scope successfully prevailed in the bidding process and convinced the central bank with its expertise,” said the then COO of Scope Group, Torsten Hinrichs. “The added value lies in a differentiated approach that opens up a new perspective – for example by taking regional characteristics into account.” Torsten Hinrichs left Scope Group by end of 2019.

The structure of the bond purchase program presented by the Hungarian Central Bank under the name “Bond Funding For Growth Scheme (BGS)” is similar to that of the European Central Bank (ECB). The total volume of 300 billion Hungarian forints (HUF) corresponds to around 921 million euros, which is 0.7% of Hungary’s gross domestic product. Bonds from Hungarian companies that do not come from the financial sector are purchased, denominated in HUF with terms between three and ten years. A rating of at least B+ is required for an award. The ratings for bond issues that have taken place are published. The bond purchase program was launched on July 1, 2019.

The background to the program is the intention of the central bank to diversify the financing alternatives for Hungarian companies, i.e. to open up other possibilities for raising capital in addition to traditional bank loans, including a liquid market for corporate bonds. The central bank will buy up to 70% of a single bond.

In the two years since the program was introduced, the demand for Scope Ratings is mainly in Hungary, as the Central Bank of Hungary buys bonds from Hungarian companies with a Scope rating under the conditions mentioned. Since the Hungarian central bank buys the overwhelming majority of corporate bonds, the interest in scope ratings is likely to exist primarily among Hungarian companies that are interested in their refinancing by the Hungarian central bank.

This graphic from Google is therefore also interesting, as it shows as of February 2021 that Google received search queries for scope ratings mainly from Berlin over the last year in Germany.

From the federal states with the financial centers of Germany, where most of the institutional investors and family offices with large assets are located, above all in Frankfurt and Munich, but also in Düsseldorf or Hamburg, Google was unable to register any search queries worth mentioning.

In order to answer the question of the importance of scope ratings for investors, the following facts arise: