Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Ready or not, borrowers are involuntarily seeing changes in the interest rates they are being charged. Why, you ask? Because there are serious, systemic risks associated with the most widely used interest rate basis in the world – the London Interbank Offered Rate (or LIBOR), including the LIBOR Rate for U.S. Dollar denominated loans and other financial products (USD LIBOR). The situation is so serious that regulatory authorities have said that “given consumer protection, litigation, and reputation risks, [they] believe entering into new contracts that use USD LIBOR as a reference rate after December 31, 2021, would create safety and soundness risks . . .”. In our view, all of this means that borrowers should prepare themselves to deal with forthcoming interest rate changes in as effective a manner as possible (and not wait until the inevitable occurs later this year).