Barclays!!

simax

iltisman wrote: »

I would rather be with a shifty unethical bank that makes a profit than some green ethical bank for nut cutlet munchers.

Sorry but the last bit made me chuckle....:D

datostar

iltisman wrote: »

I would rather be with a shifty unethical bank that makes a profit than some green ethical bank for nut cutlet munchers.

And as a long-standing Barclays customer I console myself with the fact that as sponsors of the football Premier League, some of the selfless devotion to the public good and impeccable financial probity of that august body is bound to rub off on to the bank shysters.

datostar

In view of recent developments at Barclays, I'm thinking of personalising my debit card with this image.

1. It is not a phoenix.
2. It is not a vulture which might be thought a bit near the knuckle.

I can't think they'd object to a large hungry brooding bird of prey on one of their cards....

iluvsaving

datostar wrote: »

In view of recent developments at Barclays, I'm thinking of personalising my debit card with this image.

1. It is not a phoenix.
2. It is not a vulture which might be thought a bit near the knuckle.

I can't think they'd object to a large hungry brooding bird of prey on one of their cards....

just make sure it isn't copyrighted and that would be fine!

spenderdave

I still cannot see that they committed any crime. The way LIBOR works each bank each day says what they would like the LIBOR rate to be, and the published figure becomes the average of all those. It surely would be the case that each of the banks would give a figure that is optimum for them - if the published rate is different then they have to follow that.

In this case it seems there was some influence from the traders in the stockmarket - how many we obviously don't know, and they have picked a few emails (from presumably many thousands) alleging this went on. Who then is the guilty party, the stockbroker who asked for a lower rate or the bank that followed their wishes? Would you say that every stockmarket dealer is honest and every banker corrupt?... Good or bad practice, it clearly went on at every other of the banks setting LIBOR and hardly surprising it did. It looks as if the banks are the easy target as it would be far harder to bring charges against the stockmarket.

The media in their usual way have portrayed this as a dire deed by Barclays - one wonders whether it was a 'bad news day' and there was something else to hide. Surely we should attack the whole financial market system including the stockmarket, not just dwell on one particular bank, and even the way LIBOR runs. Maybe it is the FSA that wants to make a big name for itself before it is wound up later this year?

The whole thing stinks, but Barclays are the least of the problem.

Mandelbrot

TheBanker wrote: »

Don't worry. Even if the fine was enough to bankrupt Barclays*, the FSCS would pay out up to £85k.

*There is no way on earth that the regulator would impose a fine if the fine were going to impact on customers in this way.

The overwhelming majority of the fines were imposed by US government agencies, who don't have any remit to protect UK customers.

Mandelbrot

spenderdave wrote: »

I still cannot see that they committed any crime. The way LIBOR works each bank each day says what they would like the LIBOR rate to be

Er, no.
http://www.bbalibor.com/bbalibor-explained/the-basics

preable

nope this will not inpact you.

InsideInsurance

It is a fundamentally flawed system as it requires banks to estimate what rate they could borrow at. As an estimation there is therefore human input/ "expert judgement" involved and it isnt a pure statistical/ mathematical calculation.

So chappy 1 sitting in one office of the bank is told to do this estimation. Chappette 1 sitting in the trading team's deals are going to be significant impacted by the decision made by chappy 1. Both's bonuses/ profit shares/ payrises are going to be impacted by the profits made by the bank.

Of cause morally the two should never meet and if the rates happen to go against them well they just both accept lower bonuses (much more significant for the egg head chappy 1).

On the other hand we have reality.

Barclays are simply the first bank to be caught without doubt others will follow. The real question is how systemic the issues are, is it just two people sharing a beer and having inappropriate conversations occasionally or is it just a few small steps short of a formal bank process that relevant heads of discuss the matter everyday

pqrdef

The concern about LIBOR isn't the fines, but the possibility of civil claims.

The share price is down but the structured products are holding up, so the markets expect profits to be down but don't seem to think bankruptcy is on the cards. Unless they're fiddling the prices.

This isn't the only thing though. The misselling of interest rate swaps is about to blow up and will cost another fortune.

And just when all the banks need to think about some serious spending on their IT systems.