Attention Economy


Friday, June 30, 2023

The End of LIBOR

The End of LIBOR Is (Finally) Here
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/business/end-of-libor.html
It has been an arduous process to get the financial system to stop relying on the tarnished interest-rate benchmark. 

Related:
Interest rate 'rigging' evidence 'covered up' by banks
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65635243
Andy Verity, BBC economics correspondent, notes:
Documents suggest lenders sharply dropped their interest-rate estimates after pressure from central banks. Evidence was not shown to juries at the time when bankers were jailed for smaller-scale interest-rate "rigging". Regulators said they had followed disclosure rules, declined to comment or in one case rebutted the claims.
Some evidence has previously emerged of Bank of England and UK government involvement in manipulation of interest rates. But the evidence indicating it was part of a broader, international drive not just by the UK but by central banks across the western world to push key interest rates down in October 2008 has never been published before.
The evidence indicates that in October 2008, central banks including the Bank of England, the Banque de France, the European Central Bank, Banca d'Italia, Banco de Espana and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York intervened on a large scale in the setting of Libor and Euribor.