RBS Said to Suspend Trader Over Interest Rate Rigging

Bloomberg reports that the senior trader was allegedly put on leave earlier this year for trying to rig the interest rate to benefit his trading position, said the people who asked not to be identified because the bank is probing his actions. He is the first RBS employee to be suspended or fired for attempting to rig a benchmark other than the London interbank offered rate, one of the people said.

RBS, Britain’s biggest government-owned bank, is one of at least a dozen firms being investigated over allegations they colluded to influence interest rates so they could profit from derivatives bets. RBS started its own probe into allegations of rate-rigging in the middle of 2010, according to one of the people. The Edinburgh-based lender fired four traders last year for rigging the yen and Swiss franc Libors, and suspended a further two, who have since been reinstated, the person said.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s central bank, said in July it will examine how banks are setting “key market interest rate benchmarks” amid similar reviews by regulators in Europe and the U.S.

The Singapore dollar swap offer rate, one of two main benchmark interest rates in the city-state, refers to the average cost of borrowing Singapore dollars for a set period by borrowing U.S. dollars and exchanging them into the local currency. It is calculated by a daily poll overseen by the Association of Banks in Singapore, a lobby group.

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RBS Said to Suspend Trader Over Interest Rate Rigging

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