The most serious consequence of Libor manipulation is it “undermines the certainty and the trust that markets have on benchmarks,” the director of the International Monetary Fund’s monetary and capital markets department said.

Jose Vinals said the Libor-rigging scandal also shows the importance of completing an overhaul of financial regulations. He spoke at a news conference in Washington today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Washington at srastello@bloomberg.net; Ian Katz in Washington at ikatz2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net