Libor: What is the rate that was rigged?

A number of banks including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank have been fined billions of pounds for their part in the Libor rigging scandal. But what exactly is the rate that was manipulated?

• Libor - or The London Interbank Offered Rate - is a benchmark that indicates the interest rate that banks charge when lending to each other.
• Each day, a panel of banks set out what rates they think they can borrow from others over a range of periods - from overnight up to 12 months.
• The data is collated, the top and bottom estimates are removed and the rest are then averaged to give a final figure.
• It is used as the basis for hundreds of trillions of dollars of loans and transactions around the world from complex derivatives to mortgages.
• Libor is seen as fundamental to the operation of UK and world markets.