Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, today announced the launch of a survey by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) on the use of LIBOR currencies and tenors.
The survey on the use of LIBOR is open to all users of LIBOR and will close for responses on February 15, 2019.
The purpose of the survey is to identify the LIBOR settings that are most widely used. IBA will use the results of the survey to inform its work in seeking the support of globally active banks for the publication of certain LIBOR settings after year-end 2021. The primary goal of this work would be to provide those LIBOR settings to users with outstanding LIBOR-linked contracts that are impossible or impractical to modify. Any such settings would need to be compliant with relevant regulations and in particular those regarding representativeness.
IBA’s work in seeking the support of banks for the publication of certain LIBOR settings after year-end 2021 is also designed to facilitate the industry’s work towards an orderly adoption of alternative ‘risk-free‘ reference rates (RFRs) into the financial system, as called for by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the central banks. ICE supports this work and IBA has recently launched the ICE Term RFR Portaland published a paper showing how IBA can support the development of term structures for alternative RFRs. Work on the possible continued publication of certain LIBOR settings is not intended as an alternative to the transition to RFRs for new business.
Regardless of the results of the survey, there is no guarantee that any LIBOR settings will continue to be published after year-end 2021. Users of LIBOR should not rely on the continued publication of any LIBOR settings when developing transition or fall back plans.
IBA encourages all licence holders and other users of LIBOR to complete this survey.
