November 26, 2021

Dear Valued Client:

On 5 March 2021, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) formally announced the dates for the cessation of all London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) benchmark settings currently published by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA). However, some USD LIBOR tenors like 1,3,6, and 12 months will still be published until June 30, 2023 to give way for outstanding legacy transactions. The recommended alternative for USD LIBOR is the Secured Overnight Financing Rate or SOFR.

These changes were highlighted in BSP’s memorandum No. M-2020-083 late last year which stated less dependency on LIBOR and recommended banks and its clients to transition away from LIBOR.

PHIREF is the local equivalent of LIBOR used to price instruments like interest rate swaps, cross-currency swaps, plain vanilla swaps, FX Forwards, and some peso corporate loans. This is the implied peso interest rate derived from all done USD/PHP swap and forward transactions.

The PHIREF rate is affected with the removal of LIBOR because it is computed using USD LIBOR. Given this BAP (Bankers Association of the Philippines) has approved selected fallback rates in their latest memo last Oct 2021, which can be used by both banks and its clients to settle their legacy contracts. The following are the PHIREF fallback tenors and its time of publishing.

(“PHIREF Fallback”) for the following benchmarks:

11:30 AM – O/N PHIREF
11:30 AM – 1M PHIREF
11:30 AM – 3M PHIREF
11:30 AM – 6M PHIREF

In addition, BAP will stop from publishing PHIREF Benchmarks to which (“PHIREF Fallback”) does not apply. These include the following tenors and its time of publishing.

11:30 AM – 1W PHIREF
11:30 AM – 2M PHIREF
11:30 AM – 1Y PHIREF
4:00 PM – All PHIREF tenors
Whole day –  All PHIREF tenors

The above PHIREF Benchmarks shall permanently cease to be published immediately after December 31, 2021 as approved by the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP).

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact your Robinsons Bank Treasury Sales Trader.

Truly yours,

ROBINSONS BANK CORPORATION