UK bank hit with $150 million fine – told to fire employee

Barclays fined $150m for electronic FX trading misconduct

From Finextra –

“Barclays has been slapped with a $150 million fine by New York State’s financial regulator and told to fire an employee over an automated system used to reject unprofitable client orders on its electronic foreign exchange trading platform.

Barclays employed a system called 'Last Look' on its FX trading platform which placed a milliseconds-long hold period between a client placing an order and it being executed by the bank.

The delay was designed to be a defensive bulwark against high-frequency traders using their more nimble systems to outflank market makers like Barclays and acting on price information with "toxic flow" orders”.

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Fired RBS trader says he was 'scapegoat' for FX fine

From Reuters –

“A former foreign exchange trader fired by Royal Bank of Scotland said he was a scapegoat and that the state-backed bank had "dishonestly contrived" his dismissal to divert attention from its own failings.

Ian Drysdale is claiming unfair dismissal in a London court after being sacked in February by RBS for gross misconduct. The bank says Drysdale shared in chatrooms confidential information about the trading activities of clients, including Russia's central bank, with traders at other banks.”

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UK banks failing to learn lessons from Libor scandal - FCA

From Finextra –

“The UK's banks have failed to learn the lessons from a wave of scandals over rigging of financial benchmarks says the Financial Conduct Authority in a damning report on the industry's response to evidence of widescale market abuses.

The watchdog says that the application of the lessons learned from the Libor, Forex and Gold scandals - in which traders were found to have rigged the rate to boost their bonuses and the standing of their bank - had been uneven across the industry and often lacked the urgency required given the severity of past failings.”

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