The arduous, decade-long process to end the financial system’s reliance on a tarnished interest-rate benchmark, which once underpinned trillions of dollars in contracts across the globe, is almost over. From next week, the rate, known as the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR for short, will cease to be published.LIBOR is a collective term for dozens of rates, denominated in different currencies, intended to reflect how much it costs banks to borrow from one another. That rate is important because it reflects the baseline cost that banks pass on to customers. The ups and downs in LIBOR have been reflected in many mortgages, student loans, corporate bonds and a wide variety of financial derivatives, starting more than 5 …
