£430m for currency rate fixing
Forex scam admitted
ROYAL Bank of Scotland have been fined £430million for manipulating foreign exchange rates to boost their own profits.
They were penalised yesterday along with Barclays, Citigroup and JP Morgan after a global probe into the forex trading scandal.
RBS – 80 per cent owned by the UK Government – said they had dismissed three people and suspended two more pending further investigation as part of their internal review into the matter.
Chief executive Ross McEwan said: “We are determined to learn lessons from our past mistakes and to hold those responsible fully to account for their actions.”
McEwan’s efforts to turn around the bank, who were rescued using £45.5billion of taxpayers’ money during the 2007-9 financial crisis, have been hampered by issues relating to past misconduct.
The bank are expected to pay billions of dollars to US authorities later this year to settle claims of misconduct in their handling of mortgage securities.
McEwan said: “It has taken far longer than anyone hoped to root out all the past conduct problems and practices and as a result we still have significant challenges on the horizon.”
Traders at Citigroup, JP Morgan, Barclays and RBS – calling themselves The Cartel – used an invitationonly electronic chatroom and coded language to manipulate the price of US dollars and euros between December 2007 and January 2013, US authorities say.
The four banks pled guilty to conspiring to manipulate the foreign exchange market. Barclays faced the biggest fine of £1.53billion.