The United States Treasury Department would like to break themarket of its Libor addiction.

The London Interbank Offered Rate, a measure of the interestbanks claim to charge one another to loan money, is tied to anestimated $350 trillion of notional value derivative contracts and$10 trillion in loans. It's also been under attack since before thefinancial crisis as banks admitted to rigging it to benefitfinancially. Now Daleep Singh, acting assistant secretary forfinancial markets for the U.S. Treasury, wants users to move to anew benchmark for global interest rates.

“If you are a user of Libor, and I'm sure nearly all of you are,I ask you to think about whether it's really the best choice foryour purposes,” Singh told a roomful of executives at the FuturesIndustry Association conference in Chicago Thursday. “If you areborrowing money in an adjustable-rate loan, does it make sense toyou that your interest rate will go up if the market starts to viewa handful of banks as less creditworthy on average?”