The Libor scandal is at last unfolding, and it appear the guilty parties are being punished -- BUT the time delay has diluted its effect .
The exchange regulators were warned at the time of mass manipulation, especially in STIR contracts; but the exchanges' supervision departments denied any wrong doing; therefore making it impossible for the FSA to intervene!
If our regulators are to improve and instil much needed confidence, they have to attack the abuse at the source -- or at least by the end of the trading day, as this will nip the manipulation in the bud.
Market supervision departments have to be given the power to suspend / remove traders if they fail to offer "a fair and orderly market," even if it means the exchange costs go up! Finally can someone please tell me where these LIBOR fines are going to ?
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1 Comment to "Regulators' Delays in Libor Scandal Unacceptable":
shamlet76
14 January 2013
the fines go to the government. i have seen very little restitution and i think the reason is that the behavior affected too many possible entities in the market. they don't yet have a good tracking system yet. the behavior harmed lots of stuff in the market, principally savers. it seems to me that the banks are cleaning house very carefully and that might not mean thoroughly. look at the banking environment: business as usual. so i think the banks believe they will stay in business, that they will weather the storm. we'll see if they can maintain the capital requirements AS WELL as come up with the initial margins for the swaps. banks are a community resource, necessary for storing value. but do we need these large international conglomerates? maybe not. they have lied about all sorts of important things: libor rate, swaps, proprietary trading, financial statements, off-balance sheet arrangements (which does not disclose risk and depends on the financial entity to satisfy the auditors).
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