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NY Fed VP Michael Held: LIBOR Transition Update

FED
NY Fed Executive Vice President and General Counsel Michael Held gave an update on LIBOR transition at ISDA Benchmark Strategies Forum. Citing ""headwinds in the loan market" Held states:
  • "One of our main concerns about the transition is a worry that we've had for a while now: inertia in the loan market, especially the syndicated loan market. Lending in alternative rates is not where it should be at this point. Lending banks especially need to move to alternatives, and push their borrowers to move."
  • Held notes in a survey a few months ago that "almost two-thirds of nonfinancial borrowers reported that their banks were still not offering them non-LIBOR borrowing alternatives, or even talking to them about what the alternatives might be."
  • Held said "SOFR will clearly be the dominant, most robust, most liquid rate going forward. The ARRC has recommended SOFR as the best LIBOR alternative but has no control over your choice to use it or not."
  • Fallbacks: "The end game set out for the LIBOR transition allows existing legacy U.S. dollar LIBOR linked contracts that mature by the end of June 2023 to roll off. That should cut down significantly on the scale of legacy LIBOR contracts that need to be amended. But for those contracts that do mature after mid-2023, having workable fallback language is essential."
  • Link: HELD

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