Banks, Rate-rigging | featured news

UBS on Wednesday became the first big global bank in more than two decades to have a subsidiary plead guilty to fraud. UBS, the Swiss bank, scrambled until the last minute to avoid that fate. A week ago, in a bid for leniency over interest-rate manipulation, the bank’s chairman traveled to Washington to plead his case to the Justice Department, according to people briefed on the matter. Knowing the long odds, the chairman, Axel Weber, asked the criminal division for a lighter punishment.

The fallout from an investigation into the attempted manipulation of global benchmark interest rates has again rocked Barclays Plc, as the bank recently ousted a top executive and a trader in New York for their roles in the scandal, according to regulatory filings obtained on Tuesday.

Barclays has moved quickly to fill the void at the top. The bank Thursday named Antony Jenkins, the head of its retail and business banking unit, to succeed Robert Diamond, who was forced to resign July 3 after the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to agree a settlement in the next two months with U.S. and UK authorities investigating its role in an interest-rate rigging scandal, according to industry sources, regulatory officials and lawyers familiar with the case.

The attorneys general of New York and Connecticut have issued subpoenas to seven banks over the possible manipulation of a global interest rate, a person with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press on Wednesday....

Libor benchmark interest rates are no longer "fit for purpose" and must be changed or replaced, Britain's regulator said on Friday as he set out proposals to restore their credibility.

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.

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.