The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) issued guidance on Friday intends to ensure investors and others get disclosure from the operators of financial benchmarks about their adherence to the best practices developed in response to the LIBOR scandal.
Specifically, IOSCO’s guidance aims to improve the consistency and quality of disclosure from benchmark administrators, which operate key financial metrics such as LIBOR, on their compliance with IOSCO’s principles for benchmarks. The IOSCO principles were developed in the wake of the market manipulation scandals of recent years involving LIBOR and other major financial benchmarks.
IOSCO’s guidance sets out the regulators’ expectations about the level of detail that should be included in disclosure from benchmark administrators about their adherence to the IOSCO principles. IOSCO says that the goal of its guidance is to enable regulators, investors, market participants, benchmark users and others “to understand the extent to which an administrator has implemented the principles.”
IOSCO also says its principles — which establish best practices for benchmark quality, methodology, accountability and governance — represent an “integral part” of its efforts to enhance the integrity, the reliability and the oversight of benchmarks as well as to shore up investor confidence.
“We welcome the visible efforts administrators have made to disclose publicly their compliance with the IOSCO principles. However, there is more to be done to establish consistency across the market in the statements of compliance published,” says Edwin Schooling Latter, chairman of IOSCO’s task force on financial market benchmarks.
“This guidance will help administrators describe to market participants how they’re applying the principles to their businesses and so enable users to judge whether or not the benchmarks provided follow international recommended practices and are appropriate to their needs,” he adds.