HSBC has dismissed its London-based European head of currency trading, a source close to the matter said Wednesday, one month after the bank was fined for foreign exchange market rigging. Stuart Scott, HSBC's head of currency trading for Europe, Middle East and Africa, was dismissed on Tuesday, the source confirmed. A company spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
In November, six US and European banks - including HSBC - were fined a total of $4.2 billion (3.39 billion euros) by regulators for attempting to rig forex markets. HSBC itself was fined a total of $618 million by British and US regulators. The hefty fines followed a world-wide probe into the scandal over the $5.3 trillion per day forex market, around 40 percent of which takes place in the British capital.
Britain's HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), US peers Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, and Swiss lender UBS were all fined by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The FCA found that, between January 1, 2008, and October 15, 2013, "ineffective controls" at the five banks allowed their G10 forex traders to put their banks' interests ahead of those of their clients, other market participants and the wider UK financial system.
British rival Barclays - at the heart of the 2012 Libor rate-rigging affair - was not included in the settlements and remains under investigation. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) also announced a settlement of 134 million Swiss francs ($139 million) with UBS for the rigging misconduct. In addition, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America $950 million.
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