S&P will grade banks on their AI consumption
S&P's ratings arm says bank AI use will increasingly move credit ratings. A day earlier, its CFO priced the other side: AI-driven usage of S&P data up fivefold in each of the past two quarters, under pricing he expects to shift toward usage-based.
Vincent Jiang · 2 min read
Banks got two messages from S&P Global this month. On 21 September, its ratings arm said lenders' use of artificial intelligence will increasingly affect their credit ratings, with winners and losers determined by the maturity of their AI strategies and the strength of their governance frameworks 1.
A day earlier, Chief Financial Officer Eric Aboaf told a Barclays conference what that adoption is doing to S&P's own pipes: usage of its data through APIs and large-language-model calls grew fivefold in each of the past two quarters 2.
The referee sells the habit it grades
The report draws on a June survey of 179 finance firms: 84% already use AI in support functions, fewer than a third use it to build products, and expected cost savings run to 4% this year, rising to 6% to 8% by 2028 5. Adoption alone will not move the grade, said Miriam Fernandez, S&P's AI research and adoption lead; what matters is whether banks convert the savings into durable profitability with sound risk management 5.
On the data side of the same firm, 500 customers now pull S&P feeds through model context protocol connectors, up 50% in a quarter 2. Aboaf expects pricing to evolve from value-based toward usage-based, with the data paywalled and barred from model training 2. S&P does not say banks are among the 500; to the extent they are, banks meet S&P twice on AI: once at the meter, once at the grade.
The same adoption is margin machinery
First-half margins widened in every division, and Ratings, the division that will grade bank AI, widened most 2. S&P sees a path to cutting about 20% of a roughly $500 million data-operations cost base, and targets 50 to 75 basis points of companywide margin expansion a year 2.
Ratings led first-half margin expansion across S&P's divisions
Data
| First-half 2026 margin expansion | |
|---|---|
| Ratings | 200 bps |
| Market Intelligence | 100 bps |
| Indices | 75 bps |
| Energy | 75 bps |
The data also defends itself: an OpenAI study released the week before the conference found error rates in ChatGPT's financial-services answers below 3% when they drew on S&P data, against roughly 6.5% for its nearest competitor 2. Aboaf calls AI an accelerant, not an immediate revenue line 2.
Immaterial deals, unless you count the plumbing
OpenZeppelin, whose open-source contracts sit behind more than $37 trillion in transferred value, went for a price S&P will not disclose and calls immaterial to results 37, and the stock slipped 0.44% on the news 8. Three days earlier, S&P led a $110 million extension of data firm Kaiko's Series B 6, having already rated the DeFi protocol Sky and licensed the S&P 500 for tokenized products 4.
Watch the pricing shift, and the first rating action that cites AI governance. The referee now meters the habit it grades.
How this brief was made
01Gathered & sourced202 channels · 2,260 articles▾
Agents swept 202 channels and ingested 2,260 articles, then de-duplicated and ranked them for signal.
02Verified & cross-validated8 claims · 32 data feeds▾
Every one of 8 load-bearing claims was checked against primary sources, with 32 live data feeds reconciling the figures and charts.
- 1Bloomberg, AI Use Will Soon Influence Banks' Credit Ratings, S&P Says, 21 September 2026
- 2MarketBeat, S&P Global Highlights AI-Fueled Growth, Margin Expansion at Barclays Conference, 20 September 2026
- 3PR Newswire, S&P Global Announces Agreement to Acquire OpenZeppelin, 17 September 2026
- 4CryptoSlate, From Kaiko to OpenZeppelin, S&P Global is quietly preparing for markets that never close, 18 September 2026
- 5Crypto Briefing, AI use will increasingly influence bank credit ratings, S&P says, 21 September 2026
- 6City A.M. (Business Wire), S&P Global Leads Strategic Investment in Kaiko, Extending Series B to $110 Million, 14 September 2026
- 7Decrypt, Financial Data Giant S&P Global Moves Deeper Into Crypto With OpenZeppelin Deal, 17 September 2026
- 8Blockonomi, S&P Global Inc. (SPGI) Stock: Drops as OpenZeppelin Acquisition Expands Onchain Security Push, 17 September 2026
03Reviewed & edited1 human editor▾
One editor read the draft against the evidence, tuned the framing, and signed off before it shipped.
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AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
