According to the reports, current and former credit rating executives in New York Wednesday offered conflicting views of the role of credit rating agencies in the financial meltdown.

CNNMoney. com reported on Wednesday that the three premier credit rating agencies, Fitch's, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, have been criticized for failing to foresee the housing bubble, which put the financial industry in chaos when it began to bust in 2007.

Eric Kolchinsky, a former managing director of Moody's derivatives division, said that agencies continued to give high ratings to bundled mortgage-backed securities in part because quality of assessments were secondary to securing business at Moody's.

Kolchinsky told members of the Financial Crisis Inquiries Commission, which is investigating the cause of the financial meltdown, "While there was never any explicit directive to lower credit standards, every missed deal had to be explained and defended."

The company used several techniques to rush ratings through, which lowered the quality of the company's work, said former Senior Vice President of Derivatives Mark Froeba.

"We certainly believed we were on top of this and that the information we provided as adequate," said Moody's Chief Executive Officer Raymond McDaniel.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a major shareholder at Moody's, also testified.

He said, "In this particular case, I think they (Moody's) made virtually the same mistake everyone else made." (With Inputs from Agencies)