The bank is one of a number of major lenders to settle claims of rigging the benchmark rate that is used to set borrowing costs and savings rates around the world.

(An earlier version of this news item appeared yesterday in Family Wealth Report, sister news service to this one.)

HSBC will pay $100 million to terminate US litigation alleging the bank conspired to rig Libor, the key benchmark interest rate.

HSBC is the fourth major lender to settle claims of manipulation of Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate, which banks use to set rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars of transactions and to determine costs of borrowing from each other. 

The settlement, which requires court approval, was disclosed in filings late last week with the US District Court in Manhattan, according to Reuters. HSBC denied wrongdoing, but settled to avoid the risks, costs and distraction of litigation, court papers reportedly show. 

This publication has contacted HSBC for comment and will update accordingly. 

To date, banks have spent around $9 billion in total to settle Libor-fixing probes stemming from private litigation that began in 2011 when investors including the city of Baltimore and Yale University accused 16 lenders of conspiring to manipulate the rate. 

Last year, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority announced it would phase out Libor by the end of 2021 due to a lack of underlying data.