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The LIBOR transition is far from over
05-04-2022 | treasuryXL | Refinitiv | LinkedIn |
In December 2021, LIBOR setting publication ceased on over two dozen settings. But the transition is far from over as phasing out continues for legacy contracts.
Source
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Since the end of 2021, publication of 24 LIBOR settings has stopped (CHF, EUR, GBP, USD and JPY) and the most used GBP and JPY LIBORS are now being published with a new methodology called “synthetic LIBOR”.
USD LIBORs will continue to be published until mid-2023 using panel bank submissions. Discussions surrounding Euribor are ongoing, but EU regulators appear to be waiting until the LIBOR cessation has fully taken place to define a more detailed agenda for Euribor.
To sum it up – the LIBOR transition is not yet over!
Refinitiv Eikon gives you the information you need – whenever and however you want it
What is Synthetic LIBOR?
On 16 November 2021, the FCA confirmed Synthetic LIBOR to be allowed for the temporary use of “synthetic” sterling and yen 1M, 3M and 6M LIBOR rates in all legacy LIBOR contracts.
This applied to all other than cleared derivatives, that have not been changed at or before 31 December 2021.
The Synthetic LIBOR are published on existing Refinitiv Instrument Codes (RICS), as shown in Figure 1.
Synthetic LIBOR methodology
Synthetic LIBOR = ISDA Median Spread + Term Rate.
For example, the JPY 3M Synthetic LIBOR value published on JPY3MFSR= RIC is calculated as per below:
JPY3MFSR=; -0.00020630 = JPY 3M ISDA IBOR Spread (JPY3MFSRS=ISDA ; 0.0000835) + [JPY 3M term rate (JPYTRR3M=QCKJ ; -0.0002938) x (360/365) ; -0.000289775]
*Please note that Refinitiv is an authorised distributor of ISDA spreads. You can find ISDA fallbacks and Term Rates in the Refinitiv Eikon IBOR App.
USD LIBOR challenges
The main challenge that remains is the USD LIBOR transition. Even with the cessation set to 30 June 2023, market participants have been asked to implement transition and identify fallbacks by regulators.
Even if the use of USD LIBORs has been discouraged and drastically limited for new contracts, data from DTCC and ISDA suggests that LIBOR contracts were traded in January 2022 but in low volumes.
The FCA defined clearly the stipulations in Further Provision and Information in relation to the Prohibition and the Exceptions:
The lack of credit component in SOFR appears to raise some issues, mostly from regional banks, that also stressed the fact that borrowers will struggle with SOFR. LIBOR is a forward-looking term rate and interests are known upfront, with SOFR and other alternative Risk-Free Rates (RFR), interest is compounded and only known at the end of the period.
*Please note that credit-sensitive rates such as Ameribor, AXI or BSBY are available in Refinitiv Eikon but are NOT endorsed by the ARCC or FCA.
On the cash market, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) Progress Report, published on 31 March 2021, estimated there will be approximately $5trn USD LIBOR referencing contracts in business loans, consumer loans, bonds and securitisations maturing after June 2023.
Many of these exposures may have suitable fallback language and will be able to transition away from LIBOR prior to cessation.
ARRC has selected Refinitiv to publish its recommended spread adjustments and spread adjusted rates for cash products. The USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks provide market participants, including lenders and borrowers, with an industry-standard agreed rate, which can clearly and easily be referenced in contracts.
Refinitiv launched USD IBOR Consumer Cash Fallbacks 1-week and 2-month settings on 3 January 2022.
Update on derivatives
As mentioned in the December 2021 Bank of England Risk-Free Rate Working group newsletter, the transition towards Risk-Free Rates is progressing steadily, as per the charts in Figure 5 for cleared swaps and exchange-traded futures:
In a Risk.net article, Philip Whitehurst, Head of Service Development, Rates at LCH (part of LEG Group) said: “Sterling LIBOR was the most substantial population LCH had converted, amounting to about 185,000 trades for around $15trn worth of cleared swaps. They were converted into Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) equivalents on a compensated basis.
“The same was applicable for around 75,000 yen LIBOR trades, with aggregate notional of about $4.5trn, and 25,000 to 30,000 Swiss LIBOR trades worth about $1.5trn, as well as a very small population of euro LIBOR trades.”
Whitehurst stressed that Euribor trades were not converted.
On the OTC Derivatives markets, the adoption of new Risk-Free Rates is very high.
GBP, CHF and JPY swaps are now exclusively done on new Risk-Free Rates. SOFR swaps are progressing versus LIBOR, at a quite slow pace, and now represent close to 50 percent of the traded notionals, according to ISDA swaps info figures.
Unsurprisingly, the exception remains EUR, where fewer than 30 percent of the traded notionals are on €STR.
Cross-currency swap markets are rapidly ditching legacy interest rate benchmarks in favour of RFRs.
Since the beginning of 2022, trades in euro/dollar cross-currency OTC swaps have almost exclusively referenced the secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) and the euro short-term rate (€STR).
DTCC data repositories from U.S. markets data show how 95 percent of USD / GBP, USD / JPY and USD / CHF now trade RFR versus RFR.
The transition has been pushed by RFR First initiatives, the second phase of SOFR First, launched in September 2021. It stated that interdealer trading conventions for cross-currency basis swaps between USD, JPY, GBP, and CHF LIBORs will move to each currency’s risk-free rates.
Cross-currency swaps prices can be found in Refinitiv Eikon, using the OTC advanced search tool, the OTC Pricer App and the Swap Pricer app, which now allow price cross-currency swaps based on new RFRs.
Not the end of the LIBOR transition
Although 24 LIBOR settings have already been discontinued, this does not spell the end of the LIBOR transition.
Market participants are still actively transitioning away from LIBOR trades in USD, while getting prepared for other IBORs transitions in the Eurozone and the rest of the world.
Refinitiv Eikon gives you the information you need – whenever and however you want it
The top challenges that will affect your FX risk strategy in 2022
04-04-2022 | treasuryXL | Kantox | LinkedIn |
“The year of predictable unpredictability”, as The Economist calls it. But what challenges lay in store for risk managers in 2022 when it comes to their FX risk strategy?
Credits: Kantox
Source
1. Shifting interest rate differentials across currencies
Let’s start with the first of our challenges that will affect your FX risk strategy in 2022, namely shifting interest rate differentials across currencies. This is the result of central banks reacting to inflation and inflation expectations. This will, in all likelihood, lead to increasing differences between FX rates with different value dates—also known as forward points. Central banks from a wide range of countries have adjusted their short-term interest rates in 2021, and more are set to act in 2022: Chile, Brazil, Czech Republic, UK, Hungary, Poland, NZ, South Africa, and South Korea among others.
Is your company well-prepared to manage those shifts? Is it well-prepared to take advantage of favourable forward points? In the event of ‘favourable’ forward points, for example, when a company sells and hedges in a currency that trades at a forward premium, pricing with the forward rate would allow that company to price more competitively—without endangering its profit margins.
As Toni Rami, Kantox’s Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer says, “most companies fail to take advantage of this opportunity, either because they lack the technology to do it, or because they are not aware of it, or because of both”.
Is it well prepared to protect itself from unfavourable forward points? This is shaping up to be a key concern in 2022. It would be the case, for example, of a company that sells (and hedges) in a currency or in currencies that trade at a forward discount, like a Europe- or a US-based firm that sells, for example, in Brazil.
This company could protect itself by setting boundaries around its FX pricing rate by means of automated and dynamically updated profit-taking and stop-loss orders in order to delay as much as possible the execution of the hedges. Failure to have this mechanism in place will mean:
(a) unnecessary financial losses due to the cost of carry (a key point in 2022 given recent developments in central bank policies)
(b) too much capital tied up in terms of collateral/margin requirements
(c) not enough time at your disposal in order to fine-tune and improve your forecasts (FX surveys consistently show that CFOs and treasurers would like to have more time at their disposal to fine-tune and improve their forecasts)
2. Ongoing pressure on profit margins
Turning to the second challenge, is the ongoing pressure on profit margins. There is a clear need for better, more dynamic pricing systems, as McKinsey surveys consistently show. Does your company have a proper system to price with FX rates? On the face of it, this looks like a simple proposition. It’s not. It requires a system to fetch the appropriate FX rate with criteria in terms of:
(a) sourcing the FX rate;
(b) communicating that FX rate to commercial teams
(c) updating that rate according to time-based or data-driven criteria.
And it also requires a system to create the FX-pricing rules that your business needs. Failure to have these systems in place will likely result in not being able to properly set the pricing markups —per client segment and per currency pair— that your commercial strategy requires and not being able to adequately use the forward rate for pricing purposes.
Take, again, the case of unfavourable forward points, namely a firm that sells and hedges in a currency that trades at a forward discount, or that buys and hedges in a currency that trades at a forward premium. With the proper pricing rules in place, the firm needs to price with the forward rate. That would allow it to avoid unnecessary financial losses on the carry. In 2022, with several EM central banks preparing to further raise short-term interest rates, this is likely to be a critically important element in any FXRM strategy.
3. The uncertain FX markets outlook
Finally, the uncertain FX markets outlook is a reminder of the importance of having a solid FX risk management strategy in place in 2022. According to Citi’s latest Treasury Diagnostics survey, 79% of risk managers have exposure to non-G10 currencies, in many cases unhedged because of costs, liquidity and regulations; 60% of treasurers expect a new client base in emerging markets to be the largest driver of FX-denominated sales growth. Yet 57% of CFOs say they suffered lower earnings in the past two years due to significant unhedged FX risk (worldwide), rising to 77% in EMEA. America: 61%, Asia: 43% (HSBC survey).
This requires automated hedging programs and/or combinations of automated hedging programs. Failure to have these programs in place in 2022 is likely to mean: (a) a high variability in performance, whether it is measured in cash-flow terms or in terms of accounting results; (b) failure to adequately protect and enhance operating profit margins; (c) the possibility that your customer’s FX could turn into your own credit risk if excessive currency volatility forces them to wait for a better exchange rate to settle their bills.
Worried about your FX risk health? Take our free assessment and get a personalised insights report in minutes.
Career Calibration and the Treasurer Test
31-03-2022 | Pieter de Kiewit | Treasurer Test | LinkedIn |
On a regular basis, we write about your career planning in treasury, our opinions, and observations. Two articles on the website of Treasurer Search that are strongly related to this and very well viewed are:
Also, you might have noticed that we are big fans of the Treasurer Test, which helps treasurers in visualizing their skills and personality.
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