Ratings giant S&P Global Ratings announced on October 4 that it has launched a risk assessment service for DeFi, or decentralized finance, lending operations. The new service, called Vault Risk Assessment, or VRA, provides independent assessments of "vaults" that pool investor funds and lend them out. It offers a forward-looking, relative assessment of the risk that investors' holdings will suffer losses, and unlike ordinary credit ratings, it does not assess yield levels. According to the company, assets under custody in lending vaults reached about 10 billion dollars as of September 2026, expanding roughly 6.7 times over two years from about 1.5 billion dollars in September 2024. VRA examines the credit quality of the assets being managed, mismatches between withdrawal demand and fund recovery, and the risks of the managers who set investment policy, and further evaluates them from six perspectives, including the blockchain, the lending mechanism, and the vault's security and governance. The company already assesses the ability of stablecoins to maintain their price pegs, and with VRA it will address the risk of losses associated with lending operations, aiming to support institutional investors in selecting investments and managing risk.
S&P Global IncS&P Global Ratings launched a new Vault Risk Assessment service for DeFi lending vaults, expanding its product offering.
