Banks fined for manipulating forex markets

[David Guyatt]

The manipulation of there forex market has "put the integrity of the financial system at risk."

George Osborne, bless his duplicitous little socks, says that these fines represent "tough action to clean up the corruption in the City by a few..."
Apparently the Serious Fraud Office are conducting criminal investigations and the government is fully behind their investigation.

Asked directly by a BBC reporter "should bankers getting involved in this kind of thing go to prison?", honest George waffled.

If anyone at boardroom levels is criminally charged then I'll eat turf for Christmas.

State-backed RBS and HSBC among banks fined £2 billion over foreign exchange market rigging



Fines issued by regulators dwarf those from the Libor rigging scandal

ADAM WITHNALL

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Five of the world's largest banks have been fined a total of £2 billion after an investigation into the rigging of the foreign exchange market.

Including HSBC and the tax-payer funded Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the banks were found to have failed to control business practices.
In the latest scandal to rock the industry, a number of traders have been suspended or fired for misconduct involving the buying and selling of currencies. The latest fines are four times bigger than those imposed following the Libor rigging scandal.
Around £3 trillion is traded on the giant market every day making it much bigger than the stock and bond markets and about 40 per cent of those trades are thought to go through London.
Of the fines levied, £1.1 billion has been issued by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), while £880 million come from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The other banks involved include Swiss bank UBS and the American banks JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. A further investigation into conduct at Barclays continues.
The Chancellor, George Osborne, said Serious Fraud Office is conducting criminal investigations into traders who the FCA said shared information across different banks in order to coordinate trading strategies.
"The banks that employed them face big fines - and I will ensure that these fines are used for the wider public good," he said.
FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley said: "Today's record fines mark the gravity of the failings we found and firms need to take responsibility for putting it right.
"They must make sure their traders do not game the system to boost profits or leave the ethics of their conduct to compliance to worry about."
RBS said it has placed six individuals into a disciplinary process, three of whom are currently suspended, pending further investigation.
RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton said: "The RBS board fully accepts the criticisms within today's announcements and condemns the actions of those employees responsible for this misconduct.
"Today is a stark reminder of the importance of culture and integrity in banking and we will rightly be judged on the strength of our response."
An inquiry into the Bank of England found that no official was involved in misconduct involving the foreign exchange market.
Additional reporting by PA

[David Guyatt]

The focus on tis story suggests to me that the lower orders of banks, "traders" and "bank employees" are the ones being targeted by the SFO investigation and that those who are the directing force - board level - will not be touched?

Shame in the City: £2.6bn fine leaves London's reputation in tatters



CHRIS BLACKHURST

CITY EDITOR

Wednesday 12 November 2014

In one of the darkest days in the histories of the City and Wall Street, six major banks were have been fined a total of £2.6bn by regulators. A seventh, Barclays, is still in talks over the size of its penalty.

The punishments came after an inquiry by watchdogs in Britain, the US and Switzerland into rigging of the foreign-exchange market. Over £3trn is traded daily on the international currency market, and the banks' traders were found to have manipulated prices.
What was shocking, even by the standards of the scandals of the past few years, was what regulators portrayed as the arrogance of the bank employees. They formed groups and gave themselves nicknames such as "the A team", or "the Three Musketeers". They communicated with each other via chatrooms.
One HSBC trader complained in an email to another team member who had not given him the information he needed: "You are useless... how can I make free money with no fcking heads up."
READ MORE: RBS AND HSBC AMONG BANKS FINED £2.6BN FOR FOREX RIGGING
FOREX RIGGING Q&A: WHAT DID IT INVOLVE?
EDITORIAL: BANKING, YOUR NUMBER'S UP

The report, by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, laid bare the contempt in which some bank employees hold their banks, colleagues and clients. But what is especially shaming was that the manipulation occurred recently after a series of scandals which resulted in banks paying enormous fines and employees losing their jobs. This gives the lie to the claim by the banking community they were reforming their ways and were doing everything they could to prevent misdemeanours.
HSBC alone was fined £216m in the UK and $275m in the US (Reuters)
The level of organisation among the traders and their sustained trickery shows the banks were still not managing their businesses properly and highlights yet again the problem of banks that have become too big to control.
The disregard shown by the traders for others also raises questions about the seriousness of the banks' efforts to transform their internal cultures, something they said they would do in the light of the 2008 banking crisis, when the world almost went into financial meltdown as a result of bankers' greed.