Another Day……Another Banking Scandal

Another Day……Another Banking Scandal.

With the number of scandals coming out of the city currently, London must be a laughing stock in the financial world. The latest relates to a £290 million penalty dished out to Barclays. Why? Well, they manipulated the two most important interest rates in the global financial markets during 2005 - 2009 and directly influenced the value of trillions of dollars of financial deals between banks and other institutions. Or to put that another way……they legally and morally cheated to line their own pockets.

Given our lack of trust in the banking sector, there is an assumption that other banks must be guilty also. No surprise then that other big names believed to be under investigation include Citigroup, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

But here is my conundrum......

Am I happy that the Financial Services Authority as the banking regulator has actually identified this and can now deal with it?

OR

Am I more concerned that it was permitted to go on in the first place and it took an investigation in the US to highlight it to our regulator?

Answers on a post card……

Regardless, my biggest issue is that we have further reason to distrust the banking sector which is very concerning given that all at Downing Street are pinning their hopes on our banks igniting our dormant economy.

Shameful……yet again.