It is far from difficult to argue that the London interbank
offered rate (Libor) is in serious need of replacement. Since
its inception in 1969, as a mechanism by which a group of
London-based banks could agree a floating rate of interest on
an $80 million loan for the central bank of Iran, it has
evolved remarkably little. The same cannot be said of the
market it underlies, which is now estimated to have a notional
value of around $350 trillion. Whether one looks at the 2012
manipulation scandal, or the fact that markets for many of the
funding rates Libor purports to measure barely exist anymore,
it is impossible to escape the evidence that arguably the most
important benchmark in the financial markets is no longer fit
for purpose. A change is...