Nairobi, May 1 -- NCBA has picked the secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) as the new reference rate for pricing foreign currency-denominated loans as it moves to replace the US six-month London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) that is being phased out.

The lender says in its latest annual report that the transition to SOFR will happen on June 30, which is the global date that banks will be expected to drop the Libor that has been used for over four decades.

At the end of December 2021, all British pound, euro, Swiss franc and Japanese yen instruments, and the one-week and two-month US dollar instruments stopped using the rate.

US dollar overnight, one, three, six and 12-month instruments will in the meantime expire at the end of June...