US and UK financial regulators slapped five major banks with GBP 2bn in fines this week for rigging the foreign exchange markets between January 2008 to October 2013. The banks that were fined include Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Citibank, JP Morgan and UBS.
“Today we take tough action to clean up corruption by a few so that we have a financial system that works for everyone. It’s part of a long-term plan that is fixing what went wrong in Britain’s banks and our economy,” said George Osborne, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Treasury will take a share of the fines.
UBS was fined GBP 233m, while Citibank was fined GBP 225m. JP Morgan was fined GBP 222m, RBS was fined GBP 217m and HSBC was slapped with GBP 216 in fines. Barclays has not settled with UK regulators yet. Citibank and JP Morgan, meanwhile, were each fined $310m by US regulators. RBS and UBS were also each fined $290m, while HSBC was fined $275m.
