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Confirmed: Barclays Not Alone, As Chairman Quits
02 Jul 2012 by Bearded Wiseman in Business, Crime, Economics, Finance, Legal, Money, Politics, World
The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the regulator of all providers of financial services in the UK, has today confirmed that Barclays was definitely not acting alone, nor was this an isolated case in the authorities’ probe of banks rigging a key interbank interest rate.
Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s acting director of enforcement, told the watchdog’s annual enforcement conference today that:
I wish I could say this was an isolated case… You will hear more on this in due course.
McDermott continued that Barclay’s behaviour was unacceptable to regulators and the public, and that a number of concurrent investigations were being conducted.
Authorities in this long-running global probe promise many more horrific revelations, and are now investigating more than a dozen other banks.
This included efforts from authorities in North America, Europe and Japan, including Citigroup, HSBC, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Meanwhile, this morning, Barclays made a much bigger sacrifice: Marcus Agius, the bank’s chairman, announced his resignation.
Last week’s events have dealt a devastating blow to Barclays reputation. As Chairman, I am the ultimate guardian of the bank’s reputation. Accordingly, the buck stops with me and I must acknowledge responsibility by standing aside.
Read the Barclays statement HERE.
Barclays probably hopes the Agius resignation will take some of the heat off the bank, and help to quell the demands for the chief executive, Bob Diamond, to resign too, but I wouldn’t say so.
The board has apparently decided that the chairman is dispensable, and Mr Diamond is not. If I banked with Barclays, I would be thinking like that.
The revelations have however raised speculation that the South African banking sector could stand to benefit from all of this.
[Sources: 2oceansVibe, The Economist, Reuters]
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