The American Interbank Offered Rate (AMERIBOR), or simply Ameribor, is a reference rate for corporate borrowing costs for periods between 30 and 270 days. [1] [2] [3] It is based on short-term funding data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. [1]
Introduced by Richard Sandor, who is known for creating interest-rate futures in the 1970s, Ameribor is determined on the American Financial Exchange. [1] [4] This is a platform where banks lend through mutual credit lines. [1] [5]
Ameribor serves as a competitive alternative to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), which only provides an overnight rate. [1]
Ameribor is favored by smaller banks as it accurately represents the fund trading costs for banks outside the Federal Reserve's primary dealers. These banks often lack access to repo markets. [1]
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed. The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, the compounding frequency, and the length of time over which it is lent, deposited, or borrowed.
The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate is an interest rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimates what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. It is the primary benchmark, along with the Euribor, for short-term interest rates around the world. Libor was phased out at the end of 2021, and market participants are being encouraged to transition to risk-free interest rates such as SOFR and SARON.
Eurodollars are U.S. dollars held in time deposit accounts in banks outside the United States, which thus are not subject to the legal jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Consequently, such deposits are subject to much less regulation than deposits within the U.S. The term was originally applied to U.S. dollar accounts held in banks situated in Europe, but it expanded over the years to cover US dollar accounts held anywhere outside the U.S. Thus, a U.S. dollar-denominated deposit in Tokyo or Beijing would likewise be deemed a Eurodollar deposit. The offshore locations of the Eurodollar make it exposed to potential country risk and economic risk.
In macroeconomics, an open market operation (OMO) is an activity by a central bank to give liquidity in its currency to a bank or a group of banks. The central bank can either buy or sell government bonds in the open market or, in what is now mostly the preferred solution, enter into a repo or secured lending transaction with a commercial bank: the central bank gives the money as a deposit for a defined period and synchronously takes an eligible asset as collateral.
In the United States, the federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight on an uncollateralized basis. Reserve balances are amounts held at the Federal Reserve to maintain depository institutions' reserve requirements. Institutions with surplus balances in their accounts lend those balances to institutions in need of larger balances. The federal funds rate is an important benchmark in financial markets.
An interest rate future is a financial derivative with an interest-bearing instrument as the underlying asset. It is a particular type of interest rate derivative.
In the United States, federal funds are overnight borrowings between banks and other entities to maintain their bank reserves at the Federal Reserve. Banks keep reserves at Federal Reserve Banks to meet their reserve requirements and to clear financial transactions. Transactions in the federal funds market enable depository institutions with reserve balances in excess of reserve requirements to lend reserves to institutions with reserve deficiencies. These loans are usually made for one day only, that is, "overnight". The interest rate at which these deals are done is called the federal funds rate. Federal funds are not collateralized; like eurodollars, they are an unsecured interbank loan.
The discount window is an instrument of monetary policy that allows eligible institutions to borrow money from the central bank, usually on a short-term basis, to meet temporary shortages of liquidity caused by internal or external disruptions.
In finance, a currency swap is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD, and one of the most liquid benchmark products spanning multiple currencies simultaneously. It has pricing associations with interest rate swaps (IRSs), foreign exchange (FX) rates, and FX swaps (FXSs).
Bank rate, also known as discount rate in American English, is the rate of interest which a central bank charges on its loans and advances to a commercial bank. The bank rate is known by a number of different terms depending on the country, and has changed over time in some countries as the mechanisms used to manage the rate have changed.
In international finance, a world currency, supranational currency, or global currency is a currency that would be transacted internationally, with no set borders.
The TED spread is the difference between the interest rates on interbank loans and on short-term U.S. government debt ("T-bills"). TED is an acronym formed from T-Bill and ED, the ticker symbol for the Eurodollar futures contract.
The overnight rate is generally the interest rate that large banks use to borrow and lend from one another in the overnight market. In some countries, the overnight rate may be the rate targeted by the central bank to influence monetary policy. In most countries, the central bank is also a participant on the overnight lending market, and will lend or borrow money to some group of banks.
The U.S. central banking system, the Federal Reserve, in partnership with central banks around the world, took several steps to address the subprime mortgage crisis. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stated in early 2008: "Broadly, the Federal Reserve’s response has followed two tracks: efforts to support market liquidity and functioning and the pursuit of our macroeconomic objectives through monetary policy." A 2011 study by the Government Accountability Office found that "on numerous occasions in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve Board invoked emergency authority under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to authorize new broad-based programs and financial assistance to individual institutions to stabilize financial markets. Loans outstanding for the emergency programs peaked at more than $1 trillion in late 2008."
An overnight indexed swap (OIS) is an interest rate swap (IRS) over some given term, e.g. 10Y, where the periodic fixed payments are tied to a given fixed rate while the periodic floating payments are tied to a floating rate calculated from a daily compounded overnight rate over the floating coupon period. Note that the OIS term is not overnight; it is the underlying reference rate that is an overnight rate. The exact compounding formula depends on the type of such overnight rate.
The interbank lending market is a market in which banks lend funds to one another for a specified term. Most interbank loans are for maturities of one week or less, the majority being overnight. Such loans are made at the interbank rate. A sharp decline in transaction volume in this market was a major contributing factor to the collapse of several financial institutions during the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
SARON stands for Swiss Average Rate Overnight and represents the overnight interest rate of the secured funding market for the Swiss Franc (CHF). is an overnight interest rates average referencing the Swiss Franc CHF. It is based on transactions and quotes posted in the Swiss repo market. SARON is administered by SIX.
The Libor scandal was a series of fraudulent actions connected to the Libor and also the resulting investigation and reaction. Libor is an average interest rate calculated through submissions of interest rates by major banks across the world. The scandal arose when it was discovered that banks were falsely inflating or deflating their rates so as to profit from trades, or to give the impression that they were more creditworthy than they were. Libor underpins approximately $350 trillion in derivatives. It is currently administered by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which took over running the Libor in January 2014.
Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) is a secured overnight interest rate. SOFR is a reference rate established as an alternative to LIBOR. LIBOR has been published in a number of currencies and underpins financial contracts all over the world. Because LIBOR is derived from banks' daily quotes of borrowing costs, banks were able to manipulate the rates through lying in the surveys. Deeming it prone to manipulation, UK regulators decided to discontinue LIBOR in 2021.