UBS has transferred control of one the world’s top indices for commodity prices to Bloomberg as banks retreat from setting financial benchmarks in the wake of the Libor scandal. Governance, calculation, distribution and licensing of the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index will now fall to the financial data and media company, which plans to rename it the Bloomberg Commodity Index on 1 July, said Srikant Dash, head of Bloomberg Indexes. The Swiss bank’s move comes as managers of global financial market benchmarks race to meet a July deadline to tighten oversight. Regulators want to ensure administrators better monitor submitted figures and manage conflicts of interest under principles set out by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco). UBS settled with regulators over its role in the global Libor interest-rate rigging scandal in 2012. Bloomberg last week acquired Australian bond indices from UBS as part of an ambitious expansion into the index industry. Third parties such as exchanges and data companies are viewed as less conflicted custodians than banks since they have no stake in the direction of prices.
