The credit crunch is set to force the banking industry to overhaul the way it calculates a key benchmark lending rate that is used to price financial products worth some $350 trillion.
Today’s proposal to reform the way the key ‘Libor’ inter-bank lending rate is calculated follows mounting concern about the extent to which the benchmark [...]
The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a six-year high today to fight inflation even as the euro-region economy cools.
ECB policy makers meeting in Frankfurt left the benchmark lending rate at 4 percent, as predicted by all 59 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The bank will wait until at least February to lower [...]
Chile’s central bank will probably raise the benchmark lending rate for the sixth time in the past 12 months as policy makers seek to slow the fastest inflation since 1994.
Central bank President Jose de Gregorio will increase the overnight rate by a quarter percentage point to 6.50 percent, according to 12 of 24 forecasts in [...]
Iceland’s central bank unexpectedly left its benchmark interest unchanged, six days after it obtained emergency funding from its Nordic counterparts to bolster the currency and quell inflation.
Sedlabanki kept the weekly lending rate at a record 15.5 percent, according to a statement on the Reykjavik-based bank’s Web site today. Three of 10 economists surveyed by Bloomberg [...]
The British Bankers Association is expected to tweak rather than overhaul the way it sets Libor, when it announces next week the findings of a review into the the leading global interest rate benchmark that has become seriously distorted by the global credit crisis.
Faced with growing criticism that its London interbank offered rates don’t accurately [...]
Colombia’s peso bonds rose the most in three weeks after central bankers signaled they’re concerned about an economic slowdown, fueling speculation they may hold off from raising interest rates in coming months.
The central bank left the benchmark overnight rate at a six-year high of 9.75 percent today and said in a statement after the meeting [...]
U.S. developments, more quotes and background, and adds NEW YORK to dateline.
Bankers on both sides of the Atlantic are addressing problems with Libor, the leading global benchmark rate for inter-bank borrowing, while one brokerage is laying the groundwork for a supplemental New York-based backup.
The British Bankers’ Association is discussing its Libor interbank rate-setting procedure with [...]
Mexico’s peso-denominated bonds were little changed, with the yield on the benchmark security close to a four-month high, on speculation quickening inflation will prompt central bankers to raise lending rates this year.
Yields on benchmark bonds have climbed 0.10 percentage point since Banco de Mexico raised its inflation forecast for this year on April 30, citing [...]
The great mortgage reset of 2008 isn’t turning out quite as advertised.
Thanks to interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, payments on sub-prime loans with expiring “teaser” rates are going up only modestly when the loans start adjusting –Commercial Lending by just 1% on average last month, one study found.
A payment that would have risen [...]
The rates at which banks lend to each other in the United Kingdom eased slightly on Wednesday.
The key three-month Libor rate edged down marginally to 5.92 percent from 5.93 percent Lending Manufactured, while the one-month rate fell to 5.52 percent from 5.53 percent.
The overnight contract, generally the most closely aligned to the BoE’s 5.00 [...]
