Malaysia's central bank will phase out the nine-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate, or KLIBOR, effective Jan. 1, 2018.

Bank Negara Malaysia said Dec. 29 that the decision to scrap the nine-month KLIBOR was taken in view of industry's feedback, as well as the consideration for limited market demand, relevancy and sufficiency of transactional data to support it.

Starting Jan. 1, 2017, all market participants with existing contractual agreements are expected to assess their contracts to offer customers with alternative mechanisms. New contractual agreements will no longer be referenced to the nine-month tenure.