European banks faced another day of reckoning yesterday when they were forced to pay fines and make legal provisions running into billions of dollars to cover the growing cost of financial misconduct.
There were fresh revelations from UBS and Deutsche Bank, which became the first banks to admit they had become ensnared in a global probe into alleged manipulation of the $5.3tn foreign exchange market while Dutch lender Rabobank agreed to pay a $1bn settlement over its role in the Libor-rigging scandal.
UBS said that it had begun an internal investigation of its foreign exchange business and had “taken and will take appropriate action with respect to certain personnel”.