Even though the OECD BEPS project has addressed numerous issues in the Final Reports published in October 2015, the transfer pricing aspects of financial transactions within MNE, to a main extent, have not been specifically covered by the scope of these reports. What is more, this topic was also only partially dealt with in the pre-BEPS OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines. However, the lack of extensive guidance on financial transactions is intended to be addressed by the current work of the OECD. The OECD published a discussion draft in July 2018 (in the following: DD 2018) in order to lead a public discourse on this topic.

When it comes to financial transactions, one of the key issues is the creditworthiness of the transaction itself, commonly expressed by a so-called “credit rating”. This topic was also addressed in the DD 2018, where the OECD invited commentators to deal with the questions of whether (i) the group rating or (ii) the stand-alone rating should be considered as relevant when it comes to a transfer pricing analysis of financial transactions.