US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warns Libor reform won't be left 'to the British' Mr Geither said that the £290m Barclays settlement was the outcome of a "very powerful enforcement response" that the US first started in 2008. Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, was established in 1986 as measure of how much interest banks would have to pay to borrow. It covers borrowing over a variety of periods and a number of currencies, but the central rate is set each day in London when banks submit how much it would cost them to borrow. Asked about plans for the reform, the Treasury secretary said that "the British will obviously be central to that but we're not going to leave it completely to the British." Mr Geithner has faced criticism in the US for not pushing reform harder in 2008 and will testify to Congress next week. Mark Carney, the Canadian central bank governor and head of the global Financial Stability Board, yesterday said authorities across the world are already beginning to think of alternatives to the interbank rate in the wake of the Libor rigging scandal. "If it's structurally flawed and can't be fixed, which is a possibility, there may need to be different types of approaches, and we need to think that through," he said. Libor, the key global interest rate used to price more than $500 trillion worth of loans and derivatives, has been undermined by what Mr Carney identified as its "active, conscious, repeated manipulation" by the banks. Barclays last month became the first to be penalised for the abuse, when it was fined a record £290m. Other banks remain under investigation.