Financial Stability Board Progress Report On Reforming Major Interest Rate Benchmarks

On November 14, 2018, the FSB published a progress report on ongoing reforms to major interest rate benchmarks. The FSB has been coordinating international reform work, through its Official Sector Steering Group, since 2014, when it made several recommendations aimed at addressing cases of attempted manipulation in relation to key IBORs and the decline in liquidity in certain interbank unsecured funding markets. The OSSG launched a third major initiative in 2016, to improve contract robustness to address risks of discontinuation of widely-used interest rate benchmarks. That initiative is being led by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which launched a consultation on fallback rates in July 2018.