Swiss banking giant UBS has agreed to pay 1.5bn dollars to US, UK and Swiss regulators for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate. It becomes the second major bank to be fined over Libor after Barclays was ordered to pay 450m to UK and US authorities in the summer.
A report into the Libor rate-rigging scandal says the system is broken and suggests its complete overhaul, including criminal prosecutions for those who try to manipulate it. Its author, regulator Martin Wheatley, told the BBC that bankers guilty of fixing Libor in future could be jailed.
The European Commission has adopted amendments to the proposed Regulation and Directive on insider dealing and market manipulation, following the recent LIBOR and EURIBOR scandals.
Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of financial regulation, is expected to bring forward changes to his market abuse directive and regulation within in the next weeks, the Financial Times said on Monday.
British banker Bob Diamond has revealed that one of his big fears during the 2008 global credit crisis was that his bank, Barclays, would be taken over by the British government.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced the approval of a Flexible Financing Facility (FFF) that will enable Latin American and Caribbean countries to tailor loan terms and conditions to suit their individual needs, as well as to use hedges to manage interest rate and currency risks associated with their IDB debt.