Moody’s Analytics is the global modelling option: econometric scenario models, regulatory-grade frameworks for IFRS 9 and Basel, and probability-of-default models built on one of the world’s largest corporate default datasets. Company Watch is the UK specialist: a business information provider whose H-Score® has caught around 92% of UK public-company insolvencies up to a year ahead of failure for almost 30 years, with custom scoring and stress testing trusted by banks, insurers, government and major corporations across the UK.
For institutions modelling default risk across dozens of jurisdictions with one consistent global methodology, Moody’s is a solid option. For banks, insurers, lenders and risk functions whose exposure is on UK companies, Company Watch consistently delivers more predictive accuracy, more transparency and faster answers per pound. The real question is not the size of your institution; it is where your risk lives.
The headline difference
Moody’s and Company Watch approach credit risk from opposite ends.
Moody’s Analytics grew out of the rating agency’s quantitative research arm and built its business selling modelling infrastructure across global portfolios: RiskCalc for private-company probability of default, CreditLens for credit decisioning workflows, and scenario-conditioned models that plug into IFRS 9, CECL and stress-testing programmes. The framework is consistent across 100+ countries, which is precisely its selling point and its limitation: a model calibrated for everywhere is calibrated for nowhere in particular.
Company Watch was built around a sharper question: which UK companies are going to fail, and how early can you know? The H-Score® is a transparent 0 to 100 financial-health rating where every input is disclosed. Alongside it sits the Financial Distress Index (FDI), a forward-looking probability assessment validated against real UK failure data across a three-year horizon, TextScore®, a machine-learning model that reads the language of filings, and Forecast View™, which stress-tests any UK company under custom scenarios in real time. Data Builder opens all 6 million UK Companies House entities to bulk filtering, so risk teams can build and validate their own scoring models on the full UK population. That is why the platform sits inside banks, insurers, central government and FTSE-scale corporates wherever the exposure is British.
In a sentence: Moody’s sells one consistent model for global risk scoring; Company Watch sells the most accurate lens on UK companies.
Side-by-side: feature comparison
Capability
Company Watch
Moody’s Analytics
UK companies covered
All 6m filed at Companies House
UK coverage within global dataset
Predictive distress score
H-Score® (fully transparent)
RiskCalc EDF (proprietary)
Forward-looking distress probability
FDI, validated against real UK failure data over a three-year horizon
EDF models across jurisdictions
Score explainability
Every input disclosed
Model documentation for institutional clients
Custom credit scoring
Yes, build and stress-test your own accounts or management forecasts
If the brief is a full IFRS 9 impairment or Basel capital modelling suite delivered as packaged infrastructure across a multi-country loan book, Moody’s provides validated, purpose-built tooling for exactly that job.
Multi-jurisdiction portfolios:
For institutions modelling default risk across dozens of countries with consistent methodology, Moody’s global EDF framework and macroeconomic scenario suites are the established standard.
Deep quantitative research:
Moody’s employs one of the largest credit research teams in the world, and institutions that want economist-grade scenario narratives alongside their models get genuine value from that.
If you are a global bank or insurer with a quant team and a regulatory mandate, Moody’s is a solid choice.
Where Company Watch wins
Predictive accuracy on UK and Irish companies:
The H-Score® has been identifying around 92% of UK public-company insolvencies up to a year in advance for almost 30 years, a published track record that no other provider matches for the UK market. For UK private companies, where thin filings defeat generic global models, the methodology was built specifically for what Companies House data can and cannot tell you. In practice that means bad debt avoided months before a failure appears in anyone else’s data, not written off after the fact.
A fully transparent scoring system:
Global PD models are typically delivered as documented but closed black-box methodologies. Company Watch’s entire scoring system is transparent: the H-Score® discloses each of its seven inputs spanning profitability, funding, and assets, FDI and TextScore® are built on the same open foundations, and that transparency is the benchmark on which every functionality in the platform is built, from custom scoring to stress testing. For the reader, the benefit is simple: when a credit committee, auditor or regulator asks why a score moved, you can show them, line by line. No defending a black box.
Custom scoring without a consulting engagement:
Company Watch lets risk teams build bespoke scoring models with adjustable risk thresholds, validate them against the full UK company population, and deploy them without a professional-services project. Equivalent work through a global modelling vendor typically means a consulting engagement measured in months. The benefit: a model tuned to your risk appetite, live in days, at a fraction of the cost, whether you are a specialist lender or a FTSE-scale credit function.
Real-time stress testing on live UK data:
Forecast View™ and Experiments let you model scenarios (loss of a major customer, margin compression, sector downturn) against any UK company and watch the H-Score® and FDI respond immediately. You can also upload management accounts and score companies on current numbers rather than filings that may be up to 21 months old, and that works for any company, not just UK ones. What that means in practice: you see how a counterparty holds up under pressure before you extend credit, not after, and you make the call on today’s numbers rather than filings from two accounting periods ago.
Speed, depth, and staying power:
Company Watch deploys in days, with flexible contracts and a published NPS® of 58, and serves banks, insurers, central government and major corporates on their UK exposure. The platform is purpose-built for UK and Irish risk, backed by CSU, a multi-billion-dollar global software group, while operating as an independent UK product team, so updates ship quickly and development stays UK-specialist. The benefit: enterprise-grade stability without slow enterprise deployment, and a product team that answers to UK risk customers rather than a global roadmap.
Which one should you pick?
Bank, insurer or lender whose credit exposure is on UK companies → Company Watch. Predictive accuracy, transparency and custom scoring without the slow enterprise overhead.
Institution modelling default risk across dozens of jurisdictions with one methodology → Moody’s Analytics.
Finance, procurement or risk team at a major corporate monitoring UK counterparties → Company Watch, for Forecast View™, FDI and management-accounts scoring.
Institution needing macroeconomic scenario narratives across global portfolios → Moody’s.
Risk analytics team building internal UK models or dashboards → Company Watch’s Data Builder for the underlying structured data and validated scores.
Plenty of institutions run both: Moody’s for the global multi-jurisdiction layer, Company Watch as the UK engine, where the sharper lens catches what a world model is too coarse to see.
Bottom line:
Pick Moody’s when the brief is one consistent modelling framework across global portfolios. For credit risk on UK companies, whatever the size of your institution, Company Watch is the stronger choice: more predictive accuracy, full transparency, and answers in days.
Try Company Watch on a UK supplier or counterparty you’re vetting right now.
It depends on the need. Both are competitively priced for what they do. Company Watch contracts are flexible and scale from single teams to enterprise-wide deployments, so for UK-focused work you pay for the scope you need rather than a global platform.
The H-Score® has a published track record of almost 30 years of identifying around 92% of UK public-company insolvencies up to 12 months ahead of failure, and its methodology is fully disclosed. RiskCalc is a respected global framework, but Moody’s does not publish an equivalent UK-specific accuracy figure, and the methodology is closed.
Yes. Risk teams can build bespoke models with adjustable thresholds, validate them against all 6 million UK Companies House entities, and stress-test them with Forecast View™, without consultant engagement.
IFRS 9, yes: banks, insurers and credit teams integrate Company Watch scores into IFRS 9 provisioning, underwriting workflows and portfolio monitoring, with methodology that can be explained to a regulator. FDI provides the forward-looking probability of distress over a one-to-three-year horizon, which maps naturally onto IFRS 9’s PD requirements for staging and expected credit loss. Basel is supported indirectly: the building blocks are all there for banks constructing their own models (H-Score®, FDI, custom scoring via Scoring Gateway, and full API or BigQuery access to the underlying dataset), though a fully IRB-compliant framework would be a bespoke build on those outputs rather than an off-the-shelf Basel model.
Yes. Company Watch lets you upload management accounts and score companies on current data, which matters because filed accounts at Companies House can be up to 21 months behind.
