The financial services industry is currently in the process of transitioning away from 'traditional' interbank offered rates (IBORs), towards ‘risk-free rates’ (RFRs) and other alternative rates.

This research guide first highlights sources for current and historical IBOR-type rates, before turning to look at sources for alternative rates. It is not comprehensive, but it covers many of the most important and widely-used interbank rates.

The London Interbank Offered Rate, better known as LIBOR, was established by the British Bankers' Association in the mid-1980s, and subsequently became one of the main interest rate benchmarks used in financial markets. The responsibility for administering LIBOR was handed over to ICE Benchmark Administration Ltd on 31 January 2014.

LIBOR is currently being phased out, and replaced by alternative ‘risk-free rates’ – primarily the Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) benchmark, in the case of sterling markets.

Publication of most LIBOR settings has now ceased. The 1-, 3-and 6-month USD LIBOR settings continue to be produced on a temporary basis, using an unrepresentative 'synthetic' methodology; there are restrictions on their use. All other LIBOR settings have ceased being published. As of April 2024, the remaining 'synthetic' settings are expected to cease after publication on 30 September 2024.

Further guidance and information on LIBOR transition is available from the FCA and the Bank of England.

ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) provides paying licensees with access to LIBOR rates via certain nominated redistribution partners.

Historical transparency reports containing past submissions data are available free-of-charge via the IBA website. One report provides data for single days; another gives data for multiple days.

The Financial Times publishes LIBOR rates each day, in a table headed ‘Interest Rates: Market’. The data are provided by ICE, and cover the business day before-last.

Rates going back five years are available online via the FT Data Archive (subscription required), in the report titled ‘FT500, Fixed incomes, Commodities, Interest rates'. To access LIBOR data via the FT Data Archive, follow the below steps:

1. Click on the funnel to the right of the 'Browse reports' heading. This will reveal options to filter the reports by category and specify a date range.
2. Choose the option to filter reports by the category of 'Popular print', and select the option ‘FT500, Fixed incomes, Commodities, Interest rates'.
3. Select a report from the list to download it in PDF format.

In addition, the ICAEW Library aims to keep the last 6 months' worth of market data pages from the FT, and the Guildhall Library holds the FT in various formats back to 1888. Some other public libraries also hold copies of the FT, with varying temporal coverage.

Previously, each issue of the monthly journals Business Moneyfacts and Moneyfacts provided LIBOR data in a table headed 'LIBOR - 3 month interbank', giving the closing rate on the last day of each month for the current year and the previous four years.

In more recent issues, this table has been replaced with a table providing data on SONIA (see below).

The ICAEW Library & Information Service holds issues of Business Moneyfacts from 2010 onwards, and issues of Moneyfacts from 2010 to 2020.

The London Interbank Offered Rate was established by the British Bankers' Association in the mid-1980s, and the first figures were published in January 1986. The data was collected by a company on behalf of the BBA and underwent a fixing process before the LIBOR rate was released each business day.

In June 2012 it was revealed that the LIBOR submissions from at least one bank had been manipulated, affecting the overall LIBOR rate. Three days later, on 2 July 2012, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the establishment of the Wheatley Review with a remit to 'undertake a review of the framework for the setting of LIBOR.'

The Treasury Select Committee published a preliminary report into the manipulation of LIBOR rates on 18 August 2012 and made a number of recommendations for action.

An initial discussion paper was published on 10 August 2012. The final report followed on 28 September 2012, with a ten point plan for the comprehensive reform of LIBOR which included recommendations that the BBA should transfer responsibility for LIBOR to a new administrator and that a new code of conduct for submitters be established. 

On 17 October 2012 the Government announced that they would accept the recommendations of Martin Wheatley’s independent review of LIBOR in full.

The Government launched a consultation on 28 November 2012 seeking the views of industry and the public on legislation to implement the key recommendations of the Wheatley Review of LIBOR. The consultation closed on 24 December 2012.

Following the Wheatley Review of LIBOR, a number of currencies and maturities of LIBOR were discontinued in 2013.

In February 2013, the Hogg Tendering Advisory Committee for LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) was established to recommend a new administrator for LIBOR.

On 9 July 2013, the Hogg Tendering Advisory Committee announced that the British Bankers' Association (BBA) had accepted its recommendation that NYSE Euronext should be the new LIBOR administrator.

On 13 November 2013 Intercontinental Exchange Group acquired NYSE Euronext, with the ICE press release stating that "NYSE Euronext Rate Administration Limited (which will become the new administrator for LIBOR subject to FCA authorisation) will be renamed ICE Benchmark Administration Limited."

The responsibility for administering LIBOR was handed over to ICE Benchmark Administration Ltd on 31 January 2014.

On 27 July 2017, the FCA Chief Executive Andrew Bailey stated that LIBOR would be phased out by the end of 2021 and replaced by an alternative reference rate.

In November 2017, the Bank of England and the FCA announced their intention to work with market participants to replace LIBOR with the Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) as the primary sterling interest rate benchmark by the end of 2021.

In November 2020, ICE Benchmark Administration Ltd announced two consultations – one on its intention to cease the publication of all GBP, EUR, CHF and JPY LIBOR settings at the end of 2021, and another on its intention to cease the publication of the one week and two month USD LIBOR settings at the end of 2021, and the remaining USD LIBOR settings at the end of June 2023.

In March 2021, the FCA confirmed that LIBOR settings would either cease to be published or no longer be representative:

• immediately after 31 December 2021, in the case of all sterling, euro, Swiss franc and Japanese yen settings, and the 1-week and 2-month US dollar settings; and
• immediately after 30 June 2023, in the case of the remaining US dollar settings.

The FCA announced in November 2021 that six sterling and yen LIBOR settings would continue to be produced until the end of 2022, but calculated in a ‘synthetic’ way based on risk-free rates, rather than on submissions from panel banks. This announcement made clear that the use of these ‘synthetic’ rates in any new contracts would not be allowed, though it also stated that the FCA would allow the temporary use of ‘synthetic’ sterling and yen LIBOR rates in all legacy LIBOR contracts, other than cleared derivatives, that had not been changed by the end of 2021.

At the same time, the FCA confirmed that five US dollar LIBOR settings would continue to be calculated using panel bank submissions until mid-2023, but with restrictions on the new use of US dollar LIBOR from the end of 2021 (with limited exceptions).

On 31 December 2021, 24 of the 35 LIBOR settings were published for the final time.

During 2022, the FCA engaged in a number of consultations regarding the winding down of LIBOR. These resulted in some changes to the proposed dates at which the remaining LIBOR settings will cease being published, with the FCA proposing that ICE Benchmark Administration be temporarily required to publish certain US dollar LIBOR settings under a 'synthetic' methodology beyond the end of June 2023, when the US dollar LIBOR panel will end. As per an FCA announcement published in November 2022, the schedule for winding down is as follows:

• the 3 synthetic yen LIBOR settings will cease at the end of 2022;
• the 1- and 6-month synthetic sterling LIBOR settings will cease at the end of March 2023;
• the overnight and 12-month US dollar LIBOR settings will cease at the end of June 2023;
• the 3-month synthetic sterling LIBOR setting will cease at the end of March 2024;
• the 1-, 3- and 6-month synthetic US dollar LIBOR settings will cease at the end of September 2024.

On 30th December 2022, the three synthetic yen LIBOR settings were published for the final time.

The 1- and 6-month synthetic sterling LIBOR settings were published for the final time on 31st March 2023.

In April 2023, the FCA confirmed its intention to require ICE Benchmark Administration Limited to publish 1-, 3- and 6-month synthetic US dollar LIBOR settings until the end of September 2024, following the cessation of the US dollar LIBOR panel at the end of June 2023. In the same announcement, it made clear that all new use of the synthetic US dollar LIBOR settings will be prohibited, although their use will be permitted in all legacy contracts except cleared derivatives.

The overnight and 12-month US dollar LIBOR settings ceased being published at the end of June 2023.

The 3-month synthetic sterling LIBOR setting was published for the final time on 28 March 2024.

EURIBOR, first published in December 1998, is an important euro money market benchmark. Responsibility for administering EURIBOR lies with the European Money Markets Institute (EMMI).

According to EMMI, EURIBOR measures ‘the rate at which wholesale funds in euro could be obtained by credit institutions in current and former European Union and European Free Trade Association countries in the unsecured money market’.

Live EURIBOR rates are published every TARGET2 day, at or shortly after 11:00 CET. For the first 24 hours following their publication, the latest rates are available only to paying subscribers, via a number of authorised information vendors – these are listed on EMMI’s Subscriptions FAQs page.

EURIBOR rates are subsequently made available for free on the EMMI website, with a 24-hour delay, on a backward rolling period of 25 publication days. The site also allows users to request older data for research purposes. To gain access to data, users must create a free account. These freely available rates are for non-commercial use only.

More extensive historical data for some EURIBOR maturities – in the form of monthly, quarterly and annual averages – is available via the European Central Bank’s Data Portal. Some historical data may also be available through archived versions of the official rates page on the now-defunct EURIBOR website.

The Financial Times also publishes EURIBOR rates each day, in a table headed ‘Interest Rates: Market’. Data going back five years are available online via the FT Data Archive (subscription required), in the report titled ‘FT500, Fixed incomes, Commodities, Interest rates'. To access EURIBOR data via the FT Data Archive, follow the below steps:

1. Click on the funnel to the right of the 'Browse reports' heading. This will reveal options to filter the reports by category and specify a date range.
2. Choose the option to filter reports by the category of 'Popular print', and select the option ‘FT500, Fixed incomes, Commodities, Interest rates'.
3. Select a report from the list to download it in PDF format.

The Euro Overnight Index Average (EONIA) was an interbank overnight lending reference rate for the euro, first published in 1999 and discontinued on 3 January 2022. More information on the rate, and the methodologies used to calculate it, can be found on the EMMI website.

Historical EONIA data can be accessed via the European Central Bank's Data Portal.

EONIA has now been replaced by the euro short-term rate (€STR) — see below.

The TIBOR is sponsored by the Japanese Bankers' Association (JBA), which has been calculating daily Japanese Yen TIBOR rates since November 1995 and Euroyen TIBOR rates since March 1998. In 2014 the publication of TIBOR was passed to a new body – the JBA TIBOR Administration.

The latest TIBOR rates, as well as an archive of historical rates, can be found on the JBA TIBOR Administration website.

The SONIA interest rate benchmark is the Working Group on Sterling Risk Free Reference Rates’ preferred benchmark for the transition to sterling risk-free rates from LIBOR. Having been introduced in 1997, SONIA became the responsibility of the Bank of England in 2016, and was reformed in 2018.

The SONIA rate for a given London business day is published at 9am on the following London business day.

SONIA and the SONIA Compounded Index are made freely available on the Bank of England's Interactive Statistical Database by 10am on the business day after they are first published. The database also includes historical SONIA data back to 1997, and historical SONIA Compounded Index data back to 23 April 2018.

From the time of publication until it is made freely available, the latest SONIA rate can be accessed either under a direct licence from the Bank (for a fee), or via one of the following authorised redistributors of SONIA data:

• Bloomberg
• Refinitiv
• ICE Group
• SIX Financial Information Ltd.

The euro short-term rate (€STR) is an overnight unsecured benchmark rate for the euro area published by the European Central Bank (ECB), which 'reflects the wholesale euro unsecured overnight borrowing costs of banks located in the euro area'. €STR was first published in October 2019, and is the replacement for EONIA, which was discontinued on 3 January 2022.

The latest rate is published on the ECB's website at 08:00 CET on each TARGET2 business day, based on transactions conducted and settled on the previous TARGET2 business day. Historical data are also available online, via the ECB's Data Portal.

The Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) is a benchmark interest rate for USD-denominated derivatives and loans described by the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) as 'a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities in the repurchase agreement (repo) market'. A break-down of the methodology used to calculate SOFR can be found on the New York Fed website.

The ARRC — a group of private-market participants convened by the Federal Reserve Board and the New York Fed to facilitate a transition from U.S. dollar (USD) LIBOR to a more robust reference rate — has chosen the SOFR as its recommended alternative to USD LIBOR.

The latest SOFR is published on the New York Fed website at approximately 8:00am ET on each business day. Historical rates can be accessed via the search tool towards the bottom of the same page.

The Tokyo Overnight Average rate (TONA) is an interest rate benchmark which serves as a measure of the cost of borrowing in the Japanese yen unsecured overnight money market. It is administered and published by the Bank of Japan.

Whilst JBA TIBOR continues to be widely used, the Cross-Industry Committee on Japanese Yen Interest Rate Benchmarks has recommended the use of TONA as the RFR alternative to JPY LIBOR, where appropriate.

The latest TONA rate is published on the Bank of Japan's website at around 10am JST on each business day, covering the previous business day. Historical data can be accessed via the Bank's Time-Series Data Search (under 'Financial Markets').

Swiss Average Rate Overnight (SARON) is a reference rate which, according to its administrator, SIX, 'represents the overnight interest rate of the secured money market for Swiss francs (CHF)'. It is based on transactions and quotes posted in the Swiss repo market.

The National Working Group on Swiss Franc Reference Rates has recommended SARON as the alternative to CHF LIBOR. 

SARON is continually calculated in real time and published every ten minutes during each business day, with three daily 'fixings' at 12:00pm, 4:00pm and 6:00pm. The 6:00pm fixing serves as a reference reading.

The latest SARON values (those published in the last 24 hours) are available only to paying licensees; historical SARON data is publicly available in CSV format, via SIX's Index Data Center.

For guidance on how to find other related information, see the following pages:

• UK bank base rates
• US bank base rates