Difference between revisions of "Bank of England says no evidence it was told of forex manipulation"

Two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters last month that the traders had told the BoE about the use of online chatrooms in the run-up to the daily currency rate setting. The central bank discussed with top London currency dealers their process for setting foreign exchange benchmark rates at a meeting in April 2012, more than a year before a global investigation into alleged manipulation.<br><br>These fixings are a cornerstone of global financial markets, used to price trillions of dollars' worth of investments and deals and relied upon by companies, investors and central banks. <br>In Lawsky's probe, more than a dozen banks have been asked for documents, including Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Goldman, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered. <br>Foreign exchange trading volumes have been falling in recent months, in part because of the probes. On the Thomson Reuters dealing platform, daily spot foreign exchange trading volumes fell 11.5 percent in December to $92 billion, the lowest level since the company started tracking the data almost four years ago.<br><br><br><br><br>Bloomberg News said on February 7 that Bank of England officials told currency traders at the April 2012 meeting that it wasn't improper to share impending customer orders with counterparts at other firms. "I should say that we have no evidence yet, and we have not seen the evidence that was in the Bloomberg report," he added.<br><br>A senior trader gave his notes from the meeting to the Financial Conduct Authority, Bloomberg said.<br>"The Bank of England does not condone any form of market manipulation in any context whatsoever," Bailey told the lawmakers on Tuesday. <br>"On the evidence we have currently, we have no evidence to substantiate the claim that bank officials in any sense condoned or were informed of price manipulation or the sharing of confidential client information," Bailey added.<br><br>But Andrew Bailey, the Bank's deputy governor and chief executive of the Bank's Prudential Regulation Authority, told parliament's Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday it had no evidence to suggest that bank officials in any sense condoned the manipulation of the rate-setting process.<br><br><br>Bailey said the review was in close cooperation with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is also investigating broader allegations of manipulation in the foreign exchange markets. "We've released the minutes of that meeting, but obviously there are now allegations that there are different versions of what happened at that meeting," Bailey said. <br>Bailey said the claims, which the central bank first heard about last October, were being taken "very seriously" and a full review was now underway, led by the Bank's internal legal counsel with support from an [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/external+counsel external counsel].<br><br>New York banking regulator Benjamin Lawsky is seeking documents from some of the biggest banks in foreign exchange trading, including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Barclays, a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday, as a global probe into possible market manipulation widens.<br><br>At least seven other law enforcement offices and regulators internationally are investigating whether banks rigged the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency markets. Martin Wheatley, chief executive officer of Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, said on Tuesday that his watchdog group's probe could extend into 2015, and that the allegations it is looking into are "every bit as bad" as the Libor manipulation scandal.<br><br>Deutsche Bank, the biggest foreign exchange trader in the world, fired three New York-based currency traders, a source said on Tuesday, and another in Argentina, a source said on Wednesday. More than 20 traders across Wall Street have either been put on leave, suspended or fired since the foreign exchange investigations were formally announced in October.<br><br>Here's more info regarding [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AlCXPZV61Q options binaires] have a look at the web site.