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By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - Foreign exchange traders clubbedtogether in a brazen "heads I win, tails you lose" strategy torip off customers as they rigged the $5 trillion-per-daycurrency market, British and U.S. authorities said on Wednesday.
Transcripts released as part of a multi-billion dollarsettlement are littered with examples of how customers weremisled and prices manipulated in a trading scandal that has seenseven of the world's top banks fined around $10 billion and fourplead guilty to trying to manipulate forex rates.
In October 2009, traders in the dollar and Brazilian realmarket agreed to boycott a local broker to help drive downprices and between 2008 and 2014, bank salespeople marked upprices without their clients' knowledge, regulators said.
One forex salesperson wrote in a chat to an employee atanother bank: "hard mark up is key... but i was taught early...udont have clients...u dont make money...so dont be stupid."
A Barclays employee was quoted as saying in 2010:"markup is making sure you make the right decision on price...which is whats the worst price i can put on this where thecustomers decision to trade with me or give me future businessdoesn't change...if you aint cheating, you aint trying."
Mark-ups were a key revenue source for the British bank, theregulator added.
"Mess this up and sleep with one eye open at night" oneBarclays trader was told in 2011 after being admitted into anexclusive chat room called "The Cartel", in which traders usedcoded language to manipulate benchmark exchange rates, U.S.authorities said.
The chat room was highlighted by authorities as theyextracted fines and felony charges from some of the world'sbiggest banks for allowing dollar and euro traders to coordinateto manipulate rates set at daily 1:15 pm and 4:00 pm "fixings".
Traders and sales staff at Swiss bank UBS, whichavoided a criminal charge over its foreign exchange practicesbut saw a previous U.S. non-prosecution agreement over Liborinterest rate rigging ripped up, used hand signals to concealmark-ups from customers, according to U.S. authorities.
Calling themselves "the players", "the 3 musketeers" andwith cries of "we all die together", groups of traders sharedconfidential information to set trading strategies and attemptto reap profits by manipulating currency fixes.
Once the fix had been published, congratulations flowed. "boys well donetop work", one trader was quoted as saying.Staff at Barclays were quoted as adding "we deliveredbut i dontwanna kiss from ui just take a beer".
Citigroup, JPMorgan, RBS and Barclayspleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to manipulate foreignexchange rates and six banks were fined a total of nearly $6billion in a deal that brings the end in sight of a globalinquiry into misconduct in the market.
The latest settlements come after the FCA, the U.S.Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of theComptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Swiss regulator FINMA lastNovember slapped penalties totalling $4.3 billion on six globalbanks for alleged currency rigging, including HSBC, UBSand Bank of America. (Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Alexander Smith)
