RBS Instant Messages Show Libor Rates Skewed for Traders

Royal Bank of Scotland trader Tan Chi Min told colleagues the firm was able to move global interest rates, according to electronic messages the bank is trying to make secret.

Bloomberg reports that transcripts of the internal instant messages were included in a 231-page affidavit filed Sept. 19 by Tan, the bank’s former Singapore-based head of delta trading for Asia, who’s suing Britain’s third-biggest lender by assets for wrongful dismissal after being fired last year for allegedly trying to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.

'Nice Libor', Tan said in an April 2, 2008, instant message with traders including Neil Danziger, who also was fired by RBS, and David Pieri. 'Our six-month fixing moved the entire fixing, hahahah'.

The conversations among traders at RBS and firms including Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) illustrate how the risk of abuse was embedded in the process for setting Libor, the benchmark for more than $300 trillion of securities worldwide. RBS is one of at least a dozen banks being probed over allegations they colluded to manipulate the rate so they could profit from bets on interest-rate derivatives.

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RBS Instant Messages Show Libor Rates Skewed for Traders

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