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The transition from term-based reference rates to overnight reference rates has created a dislocation in the market-making processes between the interbank and non-interbank funding, and their respective derivatives markets. This dislocation can be attributed to differences in funding and corresponding interest rate swap transactions, a thesis we explain and characterize in detail. It is then shown how this dislocation may be resolved. Based on a systemic perspective of a stylized financial system, an aggregated banking system is constructed that is void of idiosyncratic credit risks but still vulnerable to liquidity risks. Within this setup, a mathematical modeling framework for term-cognizant interest rate systems is derived that enables the pricing and valuation of bank term funding and associated derivatives transactions with varying liquidity characteristics. Other outcomes include: (i) a detailed analysis of the incomplete market paradigm that encapsulates bank term funding rates and the risk management processes involved therein; and (ii) a recovery of consistency in the pricing and valuation between funding and related interest rate swap transactions, along with a mechanism to exchange term risk.

In this paper, we investigate the role of liquidity in banks lending activity and how liquidity provision is related to bank’s credit risk and others market-based risk measures, such as bank’s implied volatility skew from options traded on the market and realized volatility from futures contract on LIBOR, during periods of global financial distress. Credit risk is given by the ratio between loan loss reserves and total assets and we find that losses from lending activity force banks to build up new liquidity provisions only during the period of financial distress. Liquidity ratio is given by the sum of cash and short-term assets over total assets and we discovered that credit risk reduces liquidity ratio only in bad times, as this demand for liquid asset is suddenly switched on and the more reserves from loan losses the bank has, the more it cleans its balance sheet from long-term commitments in order to replenish its cash and short-term securities. When we control for market-based risk measures, we evidence that both implied volatility skew and LIBOR’s realized volatility are negatively related with the liquidity ratio and are useful in predicting a distress in bank’s liquidity holdings.

This study examines whether there is a strong relationship between stock liquidity, which proxies for the implicit cost of trading shares, and future stock returns in an asset-pricing context in the UK stock market. The time period, 1994–2016, includes the most recent global financial crisis that drained liquidity from financial markets worldwide. Four different measures of stock liquidity are employed; the empirical findings indicate that liquidity is a systematic pricing factor and explains a significant portion of the variation in stock returns, even after the inclusion of the other traditional risk factors. The results are robust to both forms of liquidity, either as a residual effect or in its original form as a separate risk factor. Finally, for the first time quantile regression is applied, showing that the liquidity risk factor (LIQ) absorbs a significant portion of the information content of the size and value factors, while remaining independent of the momentum factor.