A collection of global financial industry trade groups on Thursday published a roadmap for reforming financial industry benchmarks.
The trade groups — which include the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA), the Association of Financial Markets in Europe, International Capital Market Association (ICMA) and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and its asset management group (AMG) — are also launching a global survey of buy- and sell-side firms and infrastructure providers that will examine industry in transition planning efforts.
The roadmap aims to aggregate and summarize the plans of regulators and various public-private-sector working groups on developing alternative financial benchmarks to provide, “a single point of reference on the work conducted so far” to develop and implement alternative rates, the groups say in a joint news release.
The roadmap sets out a number of potential challenges that would need to be addressed when transitioning to new risk-free rates (RFRs) from interbank offered rates (IBORs) including market adoption, valuation and risk management complexities, documentation issues, infrastructure requirements, and regulatory, tax and accounting implications.