Brazil probes 15 banks over alleged exchange-rate manipulation

Banking stocks fell on Friday after Brazil's antitrust agency accused 15 banks of rigging the Brazilian currency.CADE is investigating banks such as HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered over suspicions they worked together to manipulate the exchange rate of the real, deterring competitors from the market between 2007 and 2013.According to the watchdog which is conducting the probe, the banks used online chats to coordinate their actions, calling themselves 'the cartel' or 'the mafia'.A foreign-exchange manager at Treviso in Brazil told The Wall Street Journal this was the first time he has seen an operation involving so many banks. "It was almost certainly motivated by investigations in other countries," Reginaldo Galhardo told the publication.The investigation follows last month's news that Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay over $5bn combined in US fines and plead guilty to criminal charges over the rigging of foreign exchange markets.