Dominion Bond Rating Service today announced the formation of its U.S. financial institutions group. The new group will be headed by Alan Reid, managing director at DBRS, and includes Roger Lister, chief credit officer, and William Schwartz as vice president, senior financial analyst.

“I am very excited about the opportunity of our newly formed team helping DBRS build ratings coverage in the U.S. financial institutions market, ” Reid said.

Reid appointment to the managing director post was announced last week.

Lister will primarily be responsible for developing opinion on the U.S. banking industry, the maintenance of credit ratings on a portfolio of major U.S. banks, as well as building strong relationships between research analysts and DBRS.

He joins DBRS from Morgan Stanley where he was an executive director in its fixed income division. Prior to that, he worked in senior roles at Financial Security Assurance and at Citicorp. He has also worked in consulting companies, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Lister, who received his doctorate in economics from the University of California, Davis, will be based in DBRS’s New York office.

Schwartz joins the agency from The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., where he was vice president and manager in its credit analysis group. He has extensive experience analyzing global banks and broker/dealers, and has served as lead analyst on many counterparties.

The new group will be based in New York and will be primarily responsible for establishing ratings in the U.S. financial services sector, with an emphasis on banking.

“Establishing this group confirms our commitment to the U.S. capital markets,” DBRS president Walter Schroeder said in a release. “We are particularly pleased not only to be expanding coverage in this key area, but also to be offering investors a greater choice among rating agencies.”

The DBRS Financial Institutions Group is based in New York and Toronto. It is led by Kent Wideman, group managing director, who has over 20 years of experience in banking analysis.