Use case · Project Finance
How do I build the interest rate assumptions for a project finance bid?
The bid model is due, and the debt sculpts off one interest rate assumption. Right now that assumption is whatever you could find in the public domain — a free website, a screenshot a lender emailed across, a swap quote someone got months ago that "feels about right". If the deal prices off SAIBOR, EIBOR or JIBAR, there's barely a public domain to search. On a billion of debt, one basis point is a million dollars — and you're the one signing off the number.
Last updated: July 2026
Pull the live forward curve for the exact benchmark your debt prices off — SOFR, SAIBOR, EIBOR, EURIBOR — price the swap on your actual sculpted notional profile, and put the mid rate in the model. BlueGamma is an interest rate data and pricing platform used by 80+ financial institutions for swap rates, forward curves and cap pricing across 30+ currencies.
How you're probably doing it now
Every developer bid team we speak to describes some version of the same three-stage workflow — and the same discomfort with it.
The public domain
Before advisors are appointed, the rate assumption is whatever a free website shows — or a placeholder: a 4% benchmark plus spread, or a swap quote someone got months ago. For SAIBOR, EIBOR or JIBAR there's barely a public domain at all, so teams run free trials or ask a consultant for a favour.
"It's basically whatever is available on the public domain that you use, and then you kind of refine those assumptions as you get closer to bid."
— AVP, Project Finance at a Saudi infrastructure developer
Screenshots & phone calls
Curves arrive as screenshots from lenders or the FA, and every model refresh means asking the bank again — with a delay, and with several people on the team annoying the same desk for the same number.
"It's really annoying. We got to call a bank every time we want to update a swap… or bang our heads against [a free rates site] to get the right data points."
— Finance lead at a US solar developer (IPP)
Advisors & premium terminals
A hedging advisor is hired to validate the lenders' numbers near financial close, and the premium market-data terminal — if there ever was one — got terminated because it was overkill for what the team needed.
"We had [a terminal] license — overkill for what we needed it for, but it did what we needed. In the interim, terminated that license."
— Finance lead at a US solar developer (IPP)
How teams describe this
"The amount of models I've seen was just like — people, honestly, just leave it and wait till you get a fixed rate at [financial close], and then we'll see. We reckon it'll be between here and here."
Founder of a solar-and-battery developer, ex-IPP commercial lead
"What they're tending to do is putting in: the benchmark rate is 4% and my spread is 175… and I got a swap rate quote from someone of 3.93 a few months ago. I think that's good enough, right? That's the kind of mentality that it is."
Founder of a US clean-energy modelling platform, on developer bid models
"They're sizing the debt on the swap rate. It's observed 24 December — every lookup, I'd say, 24 December."
On a live model review with a French solar developer
"Juniors do their best scraping… in the US we have [a free rates site]. Here we don't really have anything for forward curves. When I asked, no one really knew what a forward curve was."
Project finance banker at a global bank's Australian infrastructure desk (BBSW / CORRA)
"We usually go on the free trial versions or something like that, or we ask, on a relationship basis, with our consultant… the first-hand access is not there. That's the bottleneck we are facing."
Bids lead at a Middle East renewables developer (SOFR / SAIBOR)
"The team kept complaining that actually, you know, we can't run a model and [the terminal] at the same time — because the bid models are obviously quite large."
Partner at a project finance advisory firm, on the one licensed machine
Free data is useful, but you quickly reach a ceiling: you're raising a billion dollars of debt on the back of free data — and someone on the investment committee will eventually ask whether it can be trusted. The alternative — hiring a third party to validate the hedging assumptions the lenders send — exists for a reason:
"Typically it comes from the banks… they would provide these screenshots and you kind of rely on them. But here in this part of the world we tend to hire a third party to validate the hedging assumptions that we're getting from the lenders — just to make sure that we're not getting robbed." — AVP, Project Finance at a Saudi infrastructure developer
And the stale-curve tax is measurable. "They use stale forward curves a lot. And I think there's a perception that it's good enough. But I've seen customers get burned when they are assuming certain rates and they just weren't keeping up to date," says the founder of a US clean-energy modelling platform — whose checks of model curves against live data routinely come back 10, 15, 20 basis points off. One European renewables IPP saw a curve refresh between April and July move its modelled swap strike from 2.77% to 2.86% — a significant rise in the cost of debt that a model left on the April curve would have carried silently to financial close.
From benchmark to bid model in five steps
The same portal covers every gate of the bid — first assumptions in development, refinement before submission, and validation at financial close.
Pull the forward curve for the exact benchmark
Open the rates page for your deal's benchmark — SOFR, SAIBOR, EIBOR, EURIBOR, SONIA, BBSW, CORRA, JIBAR, WIBOR, ROBOR and 25+ more — and see the current, historical and forward-looking curve in one view, with long tenors where the market supports them. No more proxying SAIBOR off a USD curve, and no more asking the markets desk to pull futures — which, as one project finance banker put it, "is not really a curve".
Price the swap on your sculpted debt schedule — forward-starting if close is years out
In the swap pricer, upload the amortising notional schedule straight from your model — monthly frequency in construction, quarterly in operations, the sculpted profile rather than a bullet approximation — and get a mid swap rate on that exact profile, in line with what the hedge bank would quote, with discount factors included. Start the swap at the expected financial-close or COD date: developer teams price one forward-starting swap per close year in the pipeline — 2026, 2027, 2028 — and structures like a 90% hedge on a 20-year term loan drawn two years forward price the same way.
Drop the mid rate into the model
Download the curve and swap rate to Excel, or pull them directly into the workbook with the Excel add-in — set a start date, end date and valuation date and the formula returns the forward rate for that period. Teams running many projects wire the mid-swap calculation into the master project model itself, so nobody re-creates a notional profile in the app for every run — "every single time you download, upload… it's a lot of hassle", and "prone to a lot of mistakes". Hard-code what goes in the bid; refresh on demand.
Refresh at every investment-committee gate
When a project's model is getting ready for an IC decision, recalculate in minutes: same saved swap, updated market. Most teams settle into a monthly cadence — "you just copy the hard values and you have the most recent curve, and the previous six just to see how it's changed every month." Share swaps with the team so anyone can refresh the central source of truth while you're on holiday — no bank call, no waiting on a screenshot.
Size the rate buffer with volatility cones
Use the volatility cones to see what the market implies about the range of future rates between now and financial close — and decide whether your buffer needs to be 100bps wide or whether 50 is enough. Renewables teams like the P90/P50 analogy from energy yields: a probabilised view of rates, instead of "plus 100 basis points" picked from the air.
For bid-model rate assumptions, specifically
Not a general data-vendor comparison — just the four ways deal teams actually source the number that the debt sculpts off.
| Free public data + bank screenshots | Hedging advisor (near close) | Premium market-data terminal | BlueGamma | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAIBOR / EIBOR / JIBAR / BBSW forward curves | ✕ Barely findable — free sites cover US benchmarks only; "you have to just make assumptions" | ✓ On request, per engagement | ✓ If you know the screens | ✓ In the portal alongside SOFR/EURIBOR — 30+ currencies |
| Swap rate on a sculpted profile | ✕ Bullet tenors only; interpolate by hand | ✓ Ask and wait for the reply | Partial — build it yourself; the default step interpolation can sit 5–15bp off on amortising profiles | ✓ Upload the notional schedule, get the mid rate — forward-starting from any close date |
| Get the curve into Excel | Copy-paste from a webpage or a screenshot | Attached to an email, when it arrives | ✕ Extract licences cost extra — "you can see them, you can't copy them" | ✓ CSV download + Excel add-in formulas |
| Refresh at each IC gate | Manual re-scrape / re-ask the bank | New request each time; delays | ✓ If the licence survived the budget review | ✓ Saved swap, reprice in minutes; Excel add-in |
| Licensed for commercial use in a bid | ✕ Marketing-grade data, no licence | ✓ Within the engagement | ✓ | ✓ Valuation-grade broker data |
| Cost shape | "Free" — plus the basis points you can't see | Fees per financial close, every close | ~$2–3k/month per terminal — "overkill for what we needed" | Flat subscription; same price for 1 project or 100 |
| Who does the work | You, in a browser, hoping the page updated | The advisor, on their timeline | You, after the training course | You, in a tool built for project finance models |
What deal teams told us
Verbatim, from recorded calls with project finance and infrastructure investors in 2025–2026. Attributed by role while we confirm naming approvals.
"That's always a challenge, right? SOFR data you can find still, but if you're looking for SAIBOR… it becomes quite problematic and you have to just make assumptions really. So I think there is a need for this, so that you can sort of bake in more accurate assumptions."
AVP, Project Finance at a Saudi infrastructure developer"I was on a conference call with some folks and we were saying, hey, it's really annoying. We got to call a bank every time we want to update a swap… or bang our heads against [a free rates site] to get the right data points."
Finance lead at a US solar developer (IPP)"We can use that in any model, right? And drop the notional profile in, get the effective swap rate… we can have sort of a central source of truth for the team… and when we're getting a project and its model ready for an investment committee decision, we can recalculate."
Finance lead at a US solar developer (IPP)"I don't really see the value in having someone checking what the bank is doing… I think there's much more value in the data than in the service that comes with it."
Investment manager at a French energy-transition infrastructure fund"Now working in a private debt fund where [a terminal] is not 100% necessary… it's obviously quite costly to have [a terminal]. I searched for valid sources to use these spreads, and hence I found BlueGamma."
Investment professional at a European private debt fund"I was looking for some forward rates late in the evening… we've got a different team that can source US rates and forwards. But they were asleep, so I signed up for BlueGamma, caught the curve, and then was able to submit the analysis in time."
Associate at an African infrastructure private-equity investor — on an investment-committee deadline"What we've been using the platform for quite a bit is curves for both SOFR and EURIBOR, and we update them once a month… you just copy the hard values here and you have the most recent curve, and the previous six just to see how it's changed every month."
Investment team at a MENA renewables fund"Oh, it's very neat, man. This is quite useful."
AVP, Project Finance at a Saudi infrastructure developer — on seeing the sculpted-profile swap pricer"We actually have a bid on Monday, so bit hectic at our end… I had a word with my CIO and he has approved it… the product is so good."
Project finance team at a Middle East utility & IPP — buying five licences before a bidA US solar developer had terminated a premium terminal licence that was overkill for its needs, then found its new financing approach carried far more exposure to forward curves and swap pricing — and every model update meant calling a bank. The team now runs a saved swap in BlueGamma as the central source of truth, drops each project's notional profile in for the effective swap rate, and recalculates at every investment-committee decision. A Dutch solar developer prices a forward-starting swap for every financial-close year in its pipeline — monthly schedules in construction, quarterly in operations, notionals adjusted to each model. And a Saudi infrastructure developer bidding on SAIBOR-denominated packages trialled the same workflow timed to a live USD financial close, benchmarking the data against what its banks sent — the same test a Middle East utility ran before approving five licences days ahead of a bid.
What's under the hood
Benchmark coverage beyond the majors: SAIBOR, EIBOR, BBSW, CORRA, JIBAR, NIBOR, STIBOR, WIBOR, ROBOR and more — alongside SOFR, EURIBOR, SONIA and €STR, across 30+ currencies.
Source: sourced directly from a leading regulated interdealer broker — the same source the major terminals use; mids typically tie out within ~1bp.
Swap pricer: upload amortising / sculpted notional schedules with frequency switches (monthly in construction, quarterly in operations); mid swap rate with discount factors; save, share and reprice swaps across the team.
Forward-starting swaps: price a hedge starting at any future financial-close or COD date — two or more years forward — one saved swap per close year in the pipeline.
Historical curves: pull the curve as of any past date — the day the swap fixed, five days before bid submission, or last year's comparable bid.
Delivery: web portal, Excel add-in (forward rates and swap rates as formulas with a valuation date — embeddable in the master project model), CSV download, dashboards with export, and API.
Government bonds too: benchmark treasuries, history and treasury forward curves — for deals priced off govvies rather than swaps.
Pricing shape: annual subscription; starter (single seat, single currency) and team (multi-seat, multi-currency) licences; same price whether you run 1 project or 100.
FAQs
SAIBOR and EIBOR forward curves are barely available in the public domain — most bid teams fall back on assumptions, bank screenshots, free-trial accounts or a consultant's favour. BlueGamma provides current, historical and forward-looking curves for SAIBOR, EIBOR and other regional benchmarks alongside SOFR, EURIBOR and SONIA, sourced from the interdealer broker market, downloadable to Excel or via API.
Outside the US, free forward-curve data barely exists — the widely-used free rates websites cover US benchmarks only, so project finance juniors end up scraping, or asking the markets desk to pull futures, which is "not really a curve". BlueGamma provides current, historical and forward-looking curves for BBSW, CORRA, JIBAR, WIBOR, ROBOR, NIBOR and 25+ other benchmarks, exportable to Excel or via API.
Use the current forward curve for the exact benchmark your debt prices off, or the mid swap rate priced on your actual sculpted notional profile, plus a buffer sized from implied volatility. A flat rate, a placeholder, or a stale public-domain number leaves basis points of margin — real money on a billion of debt — either on the table or unpriced.
You carry the whole rate move to close. Teams that leave the model on a placeholder — a 4% benchmark plus spread, or a swap quote from a few months ago that "feels about right" — routinely find their results 10–20 basis points off the live curve when checked. One European renewables IPP watched a curve refresh between April and July move its modelled swap strike from 2.77% to 2.86%: a significant rise in the cost of debt that a stale model would have missed entirely.
Yes. BlueGamma's swap pricer lets you upload the amortising or sculpted notional schedule straight from your model — monthly frequency in construction, quarterly or semi-annual in operations — and returns a mid swap rate on that exact profile, in line with what a hedge bank would quote, with discount factors. Watch interpolation, too: a common terminal default is a step curve, which can sit 5–15 basis points off on amortising profiles.
Yes. Set the swap to start at your expected financial-close or COD date — two or more years forward — with the frequency switching from monthly in construction to quarterly in operations. Developer teams price one forward-starting swap per financial-close year in the pipeline and refresh them monthly; others float during construction and price the fix at COD as a forward-starting hedge.
Look at what the market itself implies about future rate ranges. BlueGamma's volatility cones show the implied distribution of rates over your period to financial close, so you can judge whether the buffer needs to be 100 basis points wide or whether 50 is enough. Renewables teams like the analogy to P90/P50 energy yields: a probabilised view of rates, instead of "plus 100 basis points" picked from the air.
Term SOFR is separately licensed by its benchmark administrator, so BlueGamma provides compounded-overnight-derived SOFR curves instead. Because there is no liquid term SOFR derivatives market, banks price hedges off the compounded-overnight curve too — the same gap you already see between a term SOFR loan and the swap you buy on it. BlueGamma has published backtesting on how the two track each other.
The underlying source is a leading regulated interdealer broker — the same source the major terminals use — so mid rates typically tie out within about a basis point of bank screens. The two-week free trial gives full portal access, and running it alongside a live process is the best test: pull the curve for your deal's benchmark and compare it against what your bank or hedging advisor sends before relying on it.
Yes. Team licences cover multiple seats and currencies, swaps can be shared so a colleague can refresh the model while you are away, and an Excel add-in pulls forward rates and swap rates directly into the workbook. Several developer teams wire the mid-swap calculation into the master project model via the add-in, so nobody downloads and re-uploads a notional profile for every run.
Put a real curve behind the next bid
Two-week free trial, full portal. Benchmark it against whatever your bank or advisor sends — if it doesn't tie out, don't buy it.
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