New York Fed Releases Barclays-LIBOR Documents

The NY Fed reported that in its research and dealings “In the course of these exchanges, market participants reported dysfunction in the form of illiquidity and anomalous pricing across many different markets… Among the information gathered through markets monitoring in the fall of 2007 and early 2008, were indications of problems with the accuracy of LIBOR reporting.”

Another interesting tidbit: “The Barclays employee explained that Barclays was underreporting its rate to avoid the stigma associated with being an outlier with respect to its LIBOR submissions, relative to other participating banks… The Barclays employee did not state that his bank had been involved in manipulating the rate for its own trading advantage.”

The NY Fed data goes back to 2007 and then into 2008, so keep in mind that this has been an internal cross-current in Barclays and in many banks for years.

Here is the full release.

JON C. OGG