The Financial Conduct Authority has confirmed that the 20 panel banks for the LIBOR benchmark have agreed to support LIBOR until at least 2021. The announcement follows the statement by the FCA's Chief Executive, Andrew Bailey, earlier this year that the future of LIBOR could not be guaranteed because the underlying markets (the markets for unsecured wholesale term lending to banks) are no longer sufficiently active. Work around moving from LIBOR to alternative reference rates is underway. For example, the Bank of England announced in October this year that the implementation date for the reformed Sterling Overnight Index Average Interest Rate Benchmark, known as SONIA, would be April 18, 2018. The BoE took over as administrator of SONIA on April 25, 2018.

View the FCA's statement.

View Andrew Bailey's speech.