FCA Triggers Penalties On Five Banks With £1.1 Billion Fine Whilst Saving a Bullet for Barclays
The british regulator's arduous year-long forex rigging investigation has concluded with fines for Citibank, HSBC, JP Morgan, RBS and UBS
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial regulator, has announced fines totaling £1.1 billion ($1.7 billion) for five prominent banks for ineffective controls among foreign exchange traders between January 1, 2008 and October 15, 2013.
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The five banks facing fines for “failing to control business practises” in their spot FX trading operations are: Citibank (£226 million), HSBC (£216 million), JP Morgan (£222 million), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) £217 million) and UBS (£233 million).
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In a statement the FCA said, “The failings at these Banks undermine confidence in the UK financial system and put its integrity at risk.” Furthermore, the FCA intends on “launching an industry-wide remediation programme to ensure firms address the root causes of these failings and drive up standards across the market.”
Attentive readers would have noticed the absence of Barclays from the above list of scolded banks. This is because the FCA is applying specific focus and concentration on Barclays… “We will progress our investigation into that firm [Barclays] which will cover its G10 spot FX trading business and also wider FX business areas.”
Potentially a scolding of a higher magnitude.
So, five large Tier1 are being fined a lousy sum for manipulating FX markets? WHAT A JOKE!
Let´s be clear here: IF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IN SMALLER INSTITUTIONS/BROKERS/BANKS THE REGULATORS WOULD HAVE CLOSED DOWN THE SHOPS ENTIRELY !!!
THIS DECISION IS A DIRECT SLAP INTO THE FACE OF THE OTHER MARKET PARTICIPANTS AND A HYPOCRITICAL WAY OF “ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE”.
SHUT THESE GANGSTERS DOWN. SHUT THEM DOWN!!!!!
This is the most surprising performance in world trade when they find fault primarily to several banks that should have integrity as it was, was beyond thinking
@ DFX.ASIA Wong that wing what the wing say what? Say all that again, this time try to hit the correct keys. @Jimmy – yeah Jimmy I hear you. A few billion in fines – these people generate that in weeks if not days doing what they do. As if the stuff they ‘allowed’ the regulators to see during their ‘negotiations’ is the end of it. All this rigmarole with the regulators is just a smokescreen. In reality, the banks are walking away scot free again, with individuals walking the plank and not an institutionalised system of abuse that was… Read more »