And still the revelations come. Leading banks pay yet more record fines for egregious behaviour ranging from sanctions-busting to facilitating tax evasion. Their involvement in rigging markets now extends beyond Libor, the rate at which banks lend to each other, to foreign exchange and the gold market. It appears to be a pervasive rather than occasional phenomenon. Even when they have been shopped, they do not give up. UK banks, we discover, have been underpaying compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance.
目前仍不斷有訊息曝出。大銀行因各種惡劣行爲而支付的罰金不斷創下新紀錄,這些行爲從違反制裁到幫助避稅,不一而足。它們的市場操縱行爲不侷限在倫敦銀行間同業拆借利率(Libor),更是延伸到了外匯和黃金市場。這似乎是一種普遍而非偶然現象。即便銀行受到了告發後,它們仍不肯收手。我們發現,英國的銀行因不當銷售支付保護險(payment protection insurance)而支付的賠償款一直過低。