SOFIA measures the cost of overnight funding secured against high-quality Australian dollar-denominated government securities, based on eligible overnight repo transactions settled through Austraclear on the prior business day.
Eligible collateral includes Commonwealth Government Securities, Semi-Government securities, Treasury Notes, and indexed bonds, as defined under General Collateral 1 (GC1) in the AFMA Repo Conventions.
Why SOFIA?
Australia's benchmark framework continues to evolve.
For many years, Australian markets have relied on BBSW and AONIA as core reference rates for funding, lending, derivatives, and risk management.
At the same time, the Australian repo market has grown significantly and become an increasingly important source of secured funding and liquidity across financial markets. As activity in secured funding markets has expanded, the need for a transparent benchmark reflecting overnight secured funding costs has become increasingly important.
This evolution is consistent with global benchmark developments, where transaction-based risk-free reference rates have been introduced alongside existing benchmarks to provide additional transparency and choice across funding markets.
SOFIA was developed to meet that need. It complements Australia's existing benchmark framework by providing a transparent measure of overnight secured funding costs.
Together, BBSW, SOFIA and AONIA provide market participants with a broader benchmark toolkit across unsecured, secured, credit-sensitive and risk-free markets.
Built on transparency and confidence
Transparency starts with a clear methodology, strong governance, and industry confidence.
SOFIA is the culmination of multiple years of stakeholder engagement and methodology development, informed by beta publications, industry feedback, and an independent academic review.
SOFIA is designed with a transaction-based primary methodology, supported by a clearly defined fallback framework when minimum activity thresholds are not met.
Developed in alignment with the IOSCO Principles for Financial Benchmarks, SOFIA provides market participants with transparency into its methodology, governance, and oversight framework.
For more information about the methodology, see the reference documents.