EX-RBS trader handed £250k fine

The city watchdog has slapped a former Royal Bank of Scotland trader with a £250,000 fine and banned him from regulated financial activity.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that Neil Danziger, an ex-interest rate derivatives trader at the state-owned bank, knowingly failed to observe proper standards of market conduct.

The watchdog determined that he was “not a fit and proper person because he acted recklessly and lacks integrity”. Mr Danziger’s work at RBS was related to Japanese yen Libor, and on occasion he made submissions to the British Bankers Association when the lender’s primary submitters were not available.

The FCA found that between February 2007 and November 2010, Mr Danziger “routinely” made requests to RBS’S primary submitters, intending to benefit the trading positions for which he and other derivatives traders were responsible. He then took those trading positions into account when acting as a substitute submitter and, on two occasions, obtained a broker’s assistance to attempt to manipulate the Libor submissions of other banks.

In addition, between September 2008 and August 2009, Mr Danziger entered into 28 “wash trades” – riskfree trades with the same party – in pairs that cancelled each other out and for which there was “no legitimate commercial rationale”. The FCA said the purpose was to “make or facilitate brokerage payments”.