When an organisation buries the most important information at the end of a press release, it is a fair bet it is embarrassed about it. Take the latest communiqué from the British Bankers’ Association about Libor – the London Interbank Offered Rate. Two weeks ago, the BBA indicated it would not bow to demands for a radical overhaul of how the rate was calculated. It argued such a move could destabilise the market. But this week, deep in a lengthy statement, the BBA suggested it would now consider whether to introduce two new benchmarks to reflect the cost of dollar borrowing.

Given that trillions of dollars of derivatives and loan contracts are currently based on this dollar Libor benchmark, that looks pretty radical by anyone’s standards.