On March 13, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced its centralized solution, the LIBOR Benchmark Index, has been added to its Legal Notice System (LENS) to aid the transition from LIBOR benchmark rates to Secured Overnight Financing Rate Data (SOFR) as well as other new reference rates.

SFA submitted a letter to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) in response to the Fed’s proposed regulation to implement the Adjustable Interest Rate (LIBOR) Act. SFA applauds the Fed’s comprehensive proposal and is strongly supportive of the proposal, with a few imperative remaining clarifications that should be addressed so that consumer and investor contracts transition as seamlessly as Congress intended.

On August 9, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) released a survey seeking information from lenders and borrowers on plans to remediate USD LIBOR loans.

SFA, in collaboration with its members and market participants, released a Consensus-Built Industry Guide as the market transitions away from the use of the LIBOR swap curve in pricing and quoting fixed-rate structured finance bonds.

SFA’s Consensus-Built Industry Guide explains the agreed-upon replacement benchmark, associated conventions, and timing as the market transitions away from the use of the LIBOR swap curve in pricing and quoting structured finance bonds.

SFA’s survey of market investors, issuers and broker-dealers found that investors, traders and syndicate desks overwhelmingly prefer to use the I-curve to price and quote bonds across all structured finance asset classes. On the other hand, the relatively limited number of issuers and bankers who responded to the survey were more evenly split on their preference between a Treasury-based curve and the SOFR swap curve.

On March 15, President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 – also known as the “omnibus” government funding bill – into law. The bill included the Adjustable Interest Rate (LIBOR) Act, a bipartisan bill that eases the transition away from LIBOR and received overwhelming bicameral support.

The Structured Finance Association (SFA) applauded inclusion of language in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 – also known as the “omnibus” government funding bill – that would ease the transition away from the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is the benchmark index currently used to determine the interest rate that investors receive on floating-rate bonds and consumers and businesses pay on some loans.

Thursday evening, the Senate passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 – also known as the “omnibus" government funding bill. The omnibus included the bipartisan Senate LIBOR bill, the Economic Continuity and Stability Act, which was introduced by U.S. Senators Jon Tester (D-MT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Jack Reed (D-RI), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), as well as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-PA), last week and followed House passage of companion legislation in December by a vote of 415-9

We are seeking investor, issuer, trader, syndicate, banking feedback on the benchmark curve to be used to price and quote primary and secondary market structured finance bonds – as part of our ongoing market consensus building effort to replace the LIBOR swap curve currently used for much of the structured finance market.