SOFR/LIBOR Data Domain Database

Understanding SOFR and LIBOR Benchmark Rates

The Secured Overnight Financing Rate, known as SOFR, has replaced the London Interbank Offered Rate as the primary benchmark for US dollar-denominated financial contracts. SOFR is based on actual transactions in the overnight Treasury repurchase agreement market, where banks and financial institutions borrow cash overnight using US Treasury securities as collateral. This transaction-based methodology addresses the fundamental weakness of LIBOR, which relied heavily on expert judgment and panel bank submissions rather than observable market transactions, a vulnerability that was exposed during the rate manipulation scandals of 2012.

The LIBOR transition represents one of the most consequential changes in financial market infrastructure in modern history. At its peak, LIBOR served as the reference rate for an estimated $400 trillion in financial contracts globally, including floating-rate loans, interest rate swaps, mortgage products, and corporate credit facilities. The cessation of most LIBOR currency settings in 2021 and the final USD LIBOR panels in June 2023 required financial institutions worldwide to repaper legacy contracts, implement fallback provisions, and recalibrate pricing models to accommodate SOFR's distinct characteristics, including its overnight tenor structure and secured nature compared to LIBOR's term unsecured framework.

The calculation conventions for SOFR-based financial products differ meaningfully from legacy LIBOR practices and require specialized tools and platforms for accurate implementation. Compounded SOFR in arrears, the most common convention for derivatives and certain institutional loan markets, requires daily rate compounding over the accrual period with results known only at the end of the interest period. Simple daily SOFR, used in some consumer lending applications, applies each day's SOFR rate without compounding. These methodological distinctions create demand for calculation engines and validation tools that our database tracks across the benchmark rate technology provider landscape.

Term SOFR, published by the CME Group, provides forward-looking term rates derived from SOFR futures markets, offering a structural analog to the term tenors that made LIBOR practical for loan and corporate treasury applications. The development of robust SOFR term rates, compounded SOFR averages published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and credit-sensitive alternatives such as Bloomberg's BSBY rate has created a complex ecosystem of benchmark rate resources that financial professionals must navigate. Our database catalogs this entire ecosystem, from official rate publication portals to commercial analytics platforms offering transition tools and spread adjustment calculators.

The LIBOR to SOFR Transition: Market Impact and Implementation

The cessation of LIBOR represented the unwinding of a benchmark rate that had been deeply embedded in global financial infrastructure for over four decades. At its peak, LIBOR was referenced in an estimated $400 trillion of financial contracts spanning five currencies and seven tenors, encompassing everything from simple floating-rate loans and adjustable-rate mortgages to complex derivatives structures and securitized products. The transition required financial institutions to identify, categorize, and remediate every LIBOR-referencing contract in their portfolios, a massive operational undertaking that consumed significant legal, technology, and risk management resources across the global banking system over a multi-year implementation period.

The structural differences between LIBOR and SOFR created significant implementation challenges that financial institutions and their technology vendors had to address. LIBOR was an unsecured term rate available in multiple forward-looking tenors such as one-month, three-month, and six-month, making it straightforward to determine interest payments at the beginning of accrual periods. SOFR, as an overnight secured rate, required new calculation conventions including compounded-in-arrears methodologies, lookback and payment delay mechanisms, and the development of Term SOFR as a forward-looking rate to serve loan market applications where borrowers require payment certainty before the accrual period begins.

Credit-sensitive alternative benchmarks emerged during the transition period as some market participants sought rates that incorporate bank credit risk components absent from the purely secured SOFR rate. Bloomberg's Short-Term Bank Yield Index, known as BSBY, Ameribor, and other credit-sensitive rates were developed to address lending market preferences for rates that adjust to reflect changing bank funding costs. However, regulatory scrutiny of these alternatives and questions about their underlying transaction volumes have reinforced SOFR's position as the primary USD benchmark, with most new financial contracts now referencing SOFR or Term SOFR rather than credit-sensitive alternatives for their floating-rate pricing mechanisms.

Global Benchmark Rate Reform and International Alternatives

The benchmark rate reform movement extends well beyond the United States, with virtually every major currency jurisdiction implementing its own transition from legacy interbank offered rates to transaction-based risk-free rates. In the United Kingdom, SONIA, the Sterling Overnight Index Average, has replaced GBP LIBOR as the primary sterling benchmark, administered by the Bank of England based on actual overnight unsecured lending transactions in the sterling money market. The transition of the deep and liquid sterling interest rate swap market to SONIA discounting and the adoption of SONIA-linked floating-rate notes by the UK government's Debt Management Office have firmly established SONIA as the dominant sterling reference rate.

The eurozone maintains a dual benchmark framework where the reformed EURIBOR continues to operate alongside the Euro Short-Term Rate, known as ESTR, administered by the European Central Bank. Unlike LIBOR, EURIBOR survived the reform process through a transition from panel bank submissions to a hybrid methodology that prioritizes actual transaction data. This dual-rate environment means that eurozone financial institutions must maintain systems capable of handling both EURIBOR and ESTR references, with ESTR serving as the fallback rate for EURIBOR-linked contracts and the primary benchmark for derivatives market discounting and collateral interest calculations under European regulatory frameworks.

Asian benchmark rate reforms have produced distinct outcomes across jurisdictions. Japan transitioned from JPY LIBOR to TONA, the Tokyo Overnight Average Rate, while also maintaining TIBOR as a credit-sensitive domestic benchmark analogous to the eurozone's EURIBOR dual-rate structure. In Hong Kong, HONIA serves as the alternative to HIBOR, and Singapore has adopted SORA, the Singapore Overnight Rate Average, as its primary reference rate. Our database tracks the official administrator portals, market infrastructure documentation, and commercial data providers for each of these regional benchmarks, providing multinational financial institutions with a comprehensive resource for navigating the diverse global landscape of reference rate reform outcomes and implementation requirements.

Regional Coverage of Benchmark Rate Resources

Our SOFR/LIBOR data database provides comprehensive coverage of benchmark rate resources across all major financial jurisdictions where reference rate reform has reshaped market infrastructure. In the United States, we track resources from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which administers SOFR, the CME Group which publishes Term SOFR, and the extensive ecosystem of commercial data providers, transition advisory firms, and technology vendors supporting the post-LIBOR market. Our coverage also encompasses the Alternative Reference Rates Committee publications and industry working group resources that continue to guide market practice development.

International benchmark rate coverage spans the United Kingdom where SONIA has replaced GBP LIBOR as the primary sterling benchmark, the eurozone where ESTR coexists with reformed EURIBOR, Japan where TONA serves as the yen reference rate, and Switzerland where SARON replaced CHF LIBOR. We also track benchmark rate resources in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore, where local reference rate reforms have created distinct ecosystems of data providers and transition tools. This global scope ensures that multinational financial institutions can use our database to navigate benchmark rate resources across every jurisdiction where they maintain lending, derivatives, or treasury operations requiring accurate reference rate data and transition compliance documentation.