Finland Times

 

Photo AFP-Lehtikuva.

Britain, the U.S. and Swiss regulators Wednesday fined five banks 3.4 billion U.S. dollars as traders' attempted manipulation of foreign exchange rates.

     

The five banks were Citibank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.

       

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has imposed fines totalling 1.77 billion dollars on five banks. The U.S. regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered five banks to pay 1.48 billion dollars. The Swiss regulator, FINMA ordered UBS to cough up a total of 134 million Swiss francs (about 138 million dollars).

     

After a year-long investigation, regulators found the five banks' traders had manipulated the foreign exchange benchmark rates.  

     

The foreign exchange market is one of the largest and most liquid markets in the world with a daily average turnover of 5.3 trillion dollars, 40 percent of which takes place in London, said the FCA.

     

The FCA fine handed down to the banks is the largest fine imposed by it or its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority.

   

"The FCA does not tolerate conduct which imperils market integrity or the wider Britain financial system," said Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA.

     

"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," said Wheatley.

     

The FCA will continue its investigation into Barclays bank, which had been expected to announce a similar deal as the other banks.