Of Special Interest
Filters
- Newslink Trends-The Global Strategic Perspective
- Juniper Research says digital wallet users to exceed 4.4 billion by 2025, as mobile drives digital payments’ revolution
- Criminals exploit COVID-19 pandemic with rise in scams targeting victims online
- Equifax says Open Banking proving pivotal to pandemic lending
- Consumer confidence in banks, credit card providers and investments remain stable as demand supercharges digital finance says Toluna research
- Mintos says Europeans are starting to embrace investing
- US banks see IT modernisation as a way to improve customer experience
- Risk mitigation in global trade depends on digitisation-Andrew Raymond, CEO, Bolero International comments
- Juniper Research new study says the volume of B2B payments facilitated by non-banks will exceed 53 billion in 2022, from a COVID-related low of 38 billion in 2020
- CMA issues fifth publication over 3 years of the service quality league table of personal and business current account providers
- Barclays says scammers take advantage of COVID-19, cashing in on nations’ uncertainty
- S&P Global report says financial market infrastructure sector's earnings likely to cool off In second half
- Global banking market capitalisation slumps by over 30% amid pandemic says Buyshares research
- Digital wallet spend in Europe & North America to increase by 40% in 2019, finds study
- Juniper forecasts mobile money transactions will exceed 200 billion by 2024
- Banks can save the world from climate change, says former UN climate chief
- Research by NatWest reveals gender divide over attitudes to saving
- Europe’s big bank problem: too much capital is trapped in the US, says Scope
- Later-Life lending market set to almost double in the next 10 years, finds report
- Barclays/Cebr report challenges nation to think differently about wealth
- Fifth of UK investors looking to debt investment, new research reveals
- Regtech will play a more important role in PSD2, says Mitek
- Banks turn to Fintech partnerships to improve customer experience, finds Fraedom
- New industry code to tackle fraud must deliver, says Which?
- New TTF report highlights loss of trust in financial services
- Arxan highlights financial app vulnerability epidemic
- SAS asks whether banks really need to choose between operations and innovation
- Which? raises alarm as almost 1,700 free ATMs become fee-charging
- Financial wellness affects half of peoples’ mental or physical health, finds report
- Study finds traditional financial institutions embrace Fintech disruption
- Grass is greener for environmentally friendly businesses, finds Barclays
- Prospective homeowners would consider a 40-year mortgage to escape renting, finds Santander
- Millennials’ needs are changing the face of banking industry, says new report
- FS is putting consumer data at risk by failing to protect mobile apps, says Arxan
- A lack of belief in their ability holds 28% women back in work, says Cambridge & Counties
- ‘Which?’ reveals Scotland has lost over a third of its bank branches in eight years
- Next downturn unlikely to be as bad as 2008, according to S&P
- FCA reveals findings from first cryptoassets consumer research
- US consumers favour single mobile app for banking and payments
- Banks suffering major IT shutdowns every day, ‘Which?’ reveals
- The US will be a key offshore centre in 2019, says GlobalData
- Debit industry changes markedly in 10 years of the Debit Issuer Study
- UK's ‘Big Five’ face ‘too big to compete’ as small challengers secure stellar returns
- Banks as vulnerable now as before crash, says new study
- Leverage ratio a constant conundrum for European and US banks, says SNL
29th June 2012
Barclays persistent and organised Libor manipulation
Opinion
It was not news that various banks are under investigation for Libor. New to many with regard to the Barclays Bank settlement was the long term, systematic, and organised nature of it manipulation. There are specific references to manipulation occurring on the orders of senior management to make the bank appear stronger, improve profitability, and to attempt to dispel rumours that it could not borrow as cheaply as rivals. Various traders have been suspended or have left the banks but, as far as we know, none of the senior management involved have been named or charged to date.
A further complication for Barclays is that Bob Diamond, current group chief executive, was head of the investment bank at the time of the manipulation. Radio & TV headlined the news on Thursday with calls for Diamond's resignation on Wednesday night and Thursday in the UK. His offer to forego his bonus did nothing to reduce the calls.
The impact on banking ethics across the western world are set to increase. Not discussed widely yet is the fact that Barclays working in isolation would not successfully affect Libor rate if it submitted rates significantly different to the rest. This is because the Libor calculation first excludes the highest and lowest rate from those submitted by the group of banks and only then averages the remainder. Lloyds Banking and RBS in the UK are also under investigation as are Citigroup, Deutsche and UBS banks. It is not known whether their manipulation has been proven and was as systematic as with Barclays. Against the reputational damage caused by systemic long term fraud the fine of $450m imposed on Barclays is almost irrelevant. Perhaps less irrelevant to all banks found guilty of manipulation will be class action suits in American courts that are certain to follow. According to estimates delivered with the findings Libor sets the rates for around $10tr of loans and approaching $1,000tr of derivatives of various types. Any deal with the authorities by the banks cannot protect them from such civil actions. Litigants do face one problem however. The regulators have proved that requests were made to those submitting Libor data to make the information low or high and that the submitters responded by agreeing to do so. This is not the same as proving that the information they submitted was different to what they would have otherwise done. Certain data included in the regulatory report does give strong circumstantial evidence, to say the least, of such data manipulation however.
The FSA report can be accessed at:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/static/pubs/final/barclays-jun12.pdf