* Serious Fraud Office launched criminal probe in July
* Finance Minister Osborne commits funding in letter to SFO (Adds details)
LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Britain's finance ministry willhand the country's anti-fraud agency all the funds it needs toconduct a criminal investigation into alleged rigging of the$5.3 trillion-a-day currency market, a Treasury source said.
Finance minister George Osborne has written to the SeriousFraud Office (SFO) to say it will be given the financial supportit needs for the investigation.
"I understand that the SFO is in the early stages of a majorinvestigation into forex trading. Given the importance of thiswork, the Treasury will provide the required funding for thisinvestigation," the source said the letter states.
The SFO opened a criminal investigation into allegations offraudulent conduct in the foreign exchange market in July andsaid individuals could be charged next year. This is in additionto a regulatory clampdown which resulted in six major banksbeing fined a total of $4.3 billion on Wednesday.
The fines were for failing to stop traders from trying tomanipulate the foreign exchange market, following a year-longglobal investigation.
The levies brought total penalties for manipulation offinancial benchmarks to more than $10 billion over two years.
Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp and UBS were hit with penalties. Barclays is still intalks with authorities over a settlement. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Alex Smith and DavidHolmes)