Further to enquiries launched 4 months ago by the UK Financial Conduct Authority we now have Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA looking into claims that the various “fixings” during the day have been front-run/manipulated by interbank traders.
The WM/Reuters intraday rates are used by many companies/funds/central banks to establish a mutually agreed rate and are based on actual trades during specific rate-setting 60-second windows. The benchmarks provide an indicator for 159 currencies. WM Group, which is owned by State Street, takes the median of bids and offers amalgamated by Reuters during specific rate-setting windows.
This is by no means a UK or Swiss bank issue and the accusations are being thrown at multinational institutions.
More from the FT here and thanks to reader Birenda Nepal for this one from Business Week
A small number of traders have turned whistle-blower on the sharp practices but it’s not exactly a new phenomenon. There’s been suggestion around the markets of such goings-on for years.
But in these days of ever increasing regulation, and with the Forex market the one that has been under the wire for decades, we can expect this to be a bit of a witch-hunt/test case, and won’t be going away any time soon.
And talking of fixes I hope you all rushed to grab a t-shirt in Ryan’s ever so life-like NFP comp !
Have a great week-end everyone.
