Bankers seeking to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate with a flurry of tactless messages probably had little idea that the impact of their actions would be felt all the way to the Federal Reserve target rate. But—like bubbles from a bottle of Bollinger champagne—the effects of the Libor scandal are still emanating across money markets many years later.

In 2014, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) asked U.S. regulators to look into creating a replacement for Libor—one that would prove more immune to the subjective, scandalous, scurrilous whims of traders. The Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC), as the resulting body is known, last month suggested two potential replacements for the much-maligned Libor.

While the new reference rate would be important simply by dint of underpinning trillions of dollars' worth of derivatives contracts, its significance could go much further. Fresh research from Credit Suisse Securities USA suggests the chosen rate could also become the new target rate for the Federal Reserve, replacing the federal funds rate that has dominated money markets for decades but has been neutered by recent regulation and asset purchase programs. "The question of alternative reference rates and alternative policy rates are [sic] intertwined: ideally, they would be the same," writes Zoltan Pozsar, director of U.S. economics at the Swiss bank. "So it is likely that the rate the ARRC will ultimately choose will also be the Fed's new target rate. But there are problems with both alternatives."