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EU may force banks to clean Euribor

Friday, February 08 12:20:11

Banks may be forced to help compile key interest rates like Euribor under a draft law the European Union's financial services chief will propose later this year to help clean up benchmark rates that several lenders have rigged.

More than a dozen banks are being investigated by regulators over the manipulation of Euribor and Libor, inter-bank lending rates used to price trillions of dollars worth of loans.

This week, Royal Bank of Scotland became the third bank to be fined for rigging rates.

"The (European) Commission will propose further legislation on benchmarks in the second quarter of 2013 in order to further clarify the framework under which benchmarks should operate," EU financial services chief Michel Barnier said on Friday.

"Any banks considering withdrawing from the contributing panels should therefore take into account that they may be required to rejoin the panels," Barnier said.

The rate-rigging scandal and uncertainty over how benchmarks will be directly regulated has led to five banks - BayernLB, Rabobank, Raiffeisen, DekaBank and Citi - pulling out of the panel that helps set Euribor, reducing it to 39 members.

Regulators fear smaller panels of contributors make benchmark lending rates less viable and easier to manipulate.

The European Banking Federation (EBF), which runs Euribor, had no immediate comment.

The industry body said in a submission to the Commission, also published on Friday, that Euribor should be run by an independent, non-profit driven structure under public supervision, a step Britain is already taking with the similar London-based benchmark rate Libor.

Making contributions compulsory "might be a solution", the EBF submission said, but "incentive measures" would be better.

German regulator BaFin said in its submission that mandatory reporting could be useful but a threshold should be considered to "avoid excessive burdens on minor submitters".

Italian bank UniCredit said mandatory reporting would improve the reliability and accuracy of Euribor but smaller banks may be hit with extra operational burdens and costs. (C ) Reuters