Reuters: Regulatory News: UPDATE 1-BBA agrees to step back from Libor role

Reuters: Regulatory News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-BBA agrees to step back from Libor role Sep 25th 2012, 15:30 Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:30am EDT LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The British Bankers' Association (BBA) is willing to give up its responsibility for setting the Libor interbank borrowing rate if the regulator proposes such a move, it said on Tuesday. Following a fixing scandal around the benchmark interest rate this summer, Martin Wheatley, managing director of Britain's financial regulator, is due to unveil changes to Libor this week that will strip the BBA of its supervisory role. "If Mr Wheatley's recommendations include a change of responsibility for Libor, the BBA will support that," the BBA said in a brief statement on Tuesday, following a Sky News report that it had agreed to step back. Libor underpins global trade but the rate has been engulfed in controversy since Barclays was fined a record 290 million pounds in June for rigging it in the past. More banks are expected to be fined for manipulating prices. BBA members this month agreed the organisation, which is primarily a lobby group for banks, should step back from setting Libor, people at some of the BBA's member banks told Reuters. The BBA took control of Libor in 1986 and now covers a suite of 150 rates in different currencies and maturities, forming the basis for pricing contracts worth $350 trillion globally, from home loans to credit cards. Wheatley's review, due out on Friday, is also expected to propose anchoring Libor interest rates to real transactions, rather than rates which panel banks believe they could borrow from their peers. Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, calculates and distributes Libor rates for the BBA. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions