Banks, Rate-rigging | featured news

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.

The prospect of criminal cases related to the Libor scandal is expected to rattle the banking world and provide a new impetus for financial institutions to settle with the authorities.

Barclays alerted U.S. regulators as far back as 2007 to concerns that banks were rigging benchmark interest rates, according to documents released on Friday, but policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic did not appear to take decisive action, underscoring the chaos of the financial crisis.

The Bank of England confirmed on Friday it had received U.S. recommendations to overhaul the Libor benchmark at the heart of a global rate-rigging scandal, saying it had passed them on to the banking group responsible for the rate... The Bank of England confirmed on Friday it had received U.S. recommendations to overhaul the Libor benchmark at the heart of a global rate-rigging scandal, saying it had passed them on to the banking group responsible for the rate.

Twelve global banks that have been publicly linked to the Libor rate-rigging scandal face as much as $22bn in combined regulatory penalties and damages to investors and counterparties, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.