LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - Reforms from global regulatorsto prevent banks rigging market benchmarks like Libor again havestopped short of heeding U.S. calls for a more radical responseto cleaning up the sector.
The guidance from the International Organisation ofSecurities Commissions (IOSCO) on Wednesday marks the firstattempt to forge a global approach and avoid nationalinitiatives from contradicting each other.
It follows public outrage after UBS, Barclays and RBS were fined $2.6 billion in total formanipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor.
IOSCO said the data used to construct a benchmark should bebased on prices, rates and indices from an active market butthis "does not mean that every individual benchmarkdetermination must be constructed solely from transaction data".
Some U.S. regulators have called for benchmarks to be basedonly on market transactions while others say this is not alwayspossible such as when markets dried up in the financial crisis.
The watchdog, comprising regulators from the world's mainsecurities markets, said it will check within 18 months if itsmembers are applying the guidance, which is legally non-binding.