viernes, 6 de julio de 2012

El Escándalo de Barclays Manipulando la LIBOR

En la última semana o dos se destapó un interesante escándalo en Inglaterra debido a acusaciones sobre Barclays de manipular la tasa de interés de referencia LIBOR lo que ocasionó que un alto directivo de esa entidad renunciara. En este artículo de The Economist hay una buena explicación de suceso, que prende luces rojas sobre el actuar de estas instituciones financieras y las limitaciones de la autoridad supervisora y reguladora. Sobre todo porque no es el único banco o intermediario en hacer esto y muchos otros están involucrados como lo señala Felix en este post. Yo diría, un escándalo más de grupos financieros importantes a los que ya nos estamos acostumbrando!!!!

In the case of Barclays, two very different sorts of rate fiddling have emerged. The first sort, and the one that has raised the most ire, involved groups of derivatives traders at Barclays and several other unnamed banks trying to influence the final LIBOR fixing to increase profits (or reduce losses) on their derivative exposures. The sums involved might have been huge. Barclays was a leading trader of these sorts of derivatives, and even relatively small moves in the final value of LIBOR could have resulted in daily profits or losses worth millions of dollars. In 2007, for instance, the loss (or gain) that Barclays stood to make from normal moves in interest rates over any given day was £20m ($40m at the time). In settlements with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in Britain and America’s Department of Justice, Barclays accepted that its traders had manipulated rates on hundreds of occasions. Risibly, Bob Diamond, its chief executive, who resigned on July 3rd as a result of the scandal (see article), retorted in a memo to staff that “on the majority of days, no requests were made at all” to manipulate the rate. This was rather like an adulterer saying that he was faithful on most days.

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