Office Of Financial Research – Office Of The Director Richard Berner LIBOR is not just an interest rate. It is an interest rate benchmark, or reference rate, one that plays a central role in financial markets and our economy. But there are doubts about LIBOR’s reliability, prompting the Federal Reserve and the Office of Financial Research (OFR) to work with other agencies and market participants to devise a reliable, widely accepted alternative. Formerly the London Interbank Offered Rate and now ICE LIBOR (Intercontinental Exchange LIBOR), this reference rate reflects large banks’ general cost of unsecured wholesale funding — that is, their borrowing not backed by collateral. Just how central is…