The new fee schedule released this week by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced a significant reduction in charges for financial institutions with less than $1.5 billion in assets that structure products or services with costs tied to the London Interbank Offering Rate, better known as LIBOR.

Despite the elimination of the $16,000 fee for smaller institutions, the changes will have a minimal impact on the estimated 2% of credit unions that fall into this newly defined category, according to Brian Turner, owner and chief strategist for Meridian Alliance, a credit union consulting firm based in Plano, Texas.

LIBOR is used as the floating rate benchmark for many financial contracts, from interest rate swaps to student loans, mortgages and corporate funding instruments, and is the basis for trillions of dollars' worth of interest rate exposure, Turner said. After receiving negative feedback from several banking trade associations, ICE agreed to a fee schedule adjustment that, in essence, eliminates this fee for almost 95% of financial institutions with products tied to LIBOR-based pricing.