Banks, Financial Industry | featured news

The investigation into the manipulation of the Libor benchmark interest rate has led banks to seek to implicate their rivals, according to government and bank officials.

Financial markets will still be waiting to see whether the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, has other moves in mind.

Barclays Plc revealed a new regulatory probe and more U.S. lawsuits on Friday, making it harder for the British lender to rebuild its reputation damaged by the central role it played in the interest rate-rigging scandal shaking banks.

U.S. prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to people familiar with a sweeping investigation into the rate-rigging scandal.

It is an open secret in the banking world: the interest rates for many mortgages and loans are based on a benchmark that is largely guesswork. The flaws in the rate-setting process, which is used to determine the pricing for trillions of dollars of financial products, have been exposed by the latest banking scandal. Regulators around the world are investigating whether big banks gamed the rates for their own benefit before and after the financial crisis.

Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest lender, is to cut 1,000 jobs in its investment banking division, the business daily Handelsblatt reported Thursday, quoting "well-informed financial sources".

Central bankers and regulators will hold talks in September on whether the troubled global Libor interest rate can be reformed or whether it is so damaged that the benchmark of borrowing costs should be scrapped.

Americans can expect to see tangible results this fall from the task force President Obama created to investigate the financial crisis, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told TPM Thursday.

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine could face a lawsuit from the trustee trying to recover $1.6 billion in customer money from the collapse of the brokerage MF Global.

The U.S. banking industry posted a $35.3-billion profit in the first quarter of the year, its best performance since 2007, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Thursday.