Too big to fail, too big to jail

Cheating the system to make millions still appears to be as much part of the squalid culture of some City traders as the reputed excesses of the 1980s. Banks have now been fined ÂŁ2.6bn by regulators after their traders were caught rigging the ÂŁ3 trillion a day currency market.

 

 

HSBC and RBS have been fined ÂŁ792m between them. Barclays are still in talks but could be looking at the sharp end of a ÂŁ500m fine.

 

 

So how have the banks done since nearly bringing the world to the point of financial meltdown in 2007 and 2008? Because 2008 was meant to be “year zero” when they all promised to sort out their acts and start afresh with a modern cleaner culture.

 

 

Since then the Bank of England shows that public subsidies to British banks have cost over £300bn. Electronic money has been produced to oil the still creaking wheels of the world’s financial system.

 

 

The British Bankers Association and leading Tories like Johnson, Cameron and Osborne have told us to stop bashing the Banks. But the Banks haven’t stopped bashing us.

 

 

Last month Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England highlighted who did not carry the can for the financial crisis.  He said, “One of the legacies of the crisis in the US and by and large in the UK was that the individuals who ran the institutions got away. They got away with their compensation packages, they got away without sanction.”

 

 

The interbank lending rate scam, which netted millions had, he said, become “a game between people within a square mile”, a reference to the City of London.

 

 

The currency rigging scandal lasted from 2008 to October 2013. Long after the supposed start of Operation Clean Up the Banks.

 

 

The bank lending rate scandal, where the market for lending rates between banks was rigged resulted in a fine for Barclays of ÂŁ290m and a fine for Lloyds ÂŁ218m. All after the supposed start of Operation Clean Up the Banks.

 

 

Casino capitalism

 

 

The bank lending rate and currency market scandals involved the heady world of “futures” trading. This is casino capitalism in action where billions are made and lost and where nothing tangible is owned beyond having a contract for a future price.

 

 

Trading very large amounts to make a small amount of “points” gained can make even a little amount of market rigging very profitable. That’s how they do it and why they do it.

 

 

The trading is all on electronic trading platforms. Apart from oil, currencies and metals casino capitalism also includes trading such things as sugar futures, chicken broiler futures, frozen orange juice futures and pork belly futures.

 

 

It’s is nearly all speculative trading, that is gambling. It serves nearly no other purpose. The cheating comes only where the casino or the game is rigged.

 

 

Between 2009 and 2013 banks were fined a total of ÂŁ105bn for numerous ways of cheating the system long after the start of Operation Clean Up the Banks. CCP Research Foundation has produced a breakdown of the sums banks have been fined for poor conduct which you can see here.

 

 

But the retail side of banking – where we have our current accounts or organise loans – has also been infected by the cheating virus of the banking systems’ trading arms. The retail banking system has had to pay £23bn compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

 

 

Top of the league for mis-selling PPI is Lloyds which has been penalised £11.3bn. Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer for finance said, “Those who keep paying the price are the taxpayers, those being cheated and the ordinary bank workers who have been made redundant in the tens of thousands.

 

 

“Retail banks should not be chasing the financial returns expected of the other arms of the banking system. The retail side of banking has been infected by the sort of inappropriate activity and bonus culture which led to the financial crisis.

 

 

“We were promised the culture of inappropriate activity would change after 2007 and 2008. The city arms of banking appear to have a deep-rooted culture of cheating the system in some areas, and PPI mis-selling suggests that culture has spread to retail banking.

 

 

“The performance-driven sales culture is broken in retail banking. It has led us to the PPI and other mis-selling scandals and that culture has to change for the system to regain public trust and rebuild the reputation of banking.”