English Banks are Quivering

Barclays: Cameron says bank faces ‘serious questions’

Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Barclays Bank management has “serious questions” to answer over how it manipulated banking lending rates.

Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) after an investigation into claims that several banks manipulated the Libor rate at which they lend to each other.

The Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that HSBC, RBS, Citigroup and UBS are also under investigation.

The scandal hit Barclays shares, which ended Thursday trading down 15.5%.

Other banks shares fell as well, with RBS losing 11.5%, Lloyds down 3.9%, and HSBC giving up 2.6%.

Barclays had acknowledged on Wednesday that its actions between 2005 and 2009 had fallen “well short of standards”.

Investigators say that Barclays’ traders lied to make the bank look more secure during the financial crisis and, sometimes – working with traders at other banks – to make a profit.

‘Who was responsible?’

// David Cameron: “The whole senior management team have got some big questions to answer”

Mr Cameron said “the whole management team have got some serious questions to answer. Let them answer those questions first.

“Who was responsible? Who was going to take responsibility? How are they being held accountable?”

Business Secretary Vince Cable said that while it would be “seriously premature” to decide now whether Mr Diamond should be sacked, he added that the Government did have powers to disqualify directors.

“If the facts suggested action – and obviously we would be subject to legal advice; this is a legal process – then indeed that could well follow,” he said.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Chancellor Osborne said: “The FSA report is a shocking indictment of the culture at banks like Barclays in the run-up to the financial crisis.”

Source: BBC News Read more

Opinion:

Looks like the English have got the banks quivering.

In America the banks have the government quivering.

’nuff said!