March 8 (Reuters) - Britain's Serious Fraud Office iscalling former traders of Barclays Plc and DeutscheBank for interviews as part of its investigation ofwhether the Euribor benchmark interest rate was rigged, the FTreported, citing people familiar with the probe.
With the help of special government funding, the SeriousFraud Office is examining if the euro interbank offered rate,Euribor, was manipulated for individual trading benefit, thenewspaper said. (http://on.ft.com/193gu3D)
UK regulators are also investigating traders from otherbanks, the newspaper said, citing sources.
Barclays, which set aside 750 million pounds for finesarising from allegations of manipulation in currency markets,last week said it hopes to settle these investigations as soonas possible.
Deutsche, for its part, is gearing up to pay almost 1billion euros for fines related to the settlement of allegationsrelated to the manipulation of Libor.
The SFO followed dual strands of Euribor and dollar Liborfor investigation, the newspaper said.
Barclays, UBS AG Deutsche and a few other banks andbrokerages were fined about $6 billion by U.S. and Europeanregulators last year for alleged Libor and Euribor rigging [ID:nL6N0PT3BS]
Barclays, Deutsche and the SFO could not be reachedimmediately for comment outside regular business hours.
(Reporting by Rishika Sadam in Bengaluru; Editing by LeslieAdler)
Barclays (BARC)
