UPDATE 1-South Africa watchdog seeks penalty against banks for FX rigging

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By Tiisetso Motsoeneng

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 15 (Reuters) - South Africa's competitionwatchdog has recommended fines against banks including Citigroup, Nomura and Standard Bank equal to 10percent of their annual revenues for rigging the rand currency,it said on Wednesday.

The Competition Commission said it had concluded aninvestigation into whether banks colluded by using an instantmessaging chat room called "ZAR Domination", to coordinate theirtrading activities when giving quotes to customers who buy orsell currencies.

ZAR is the code for the South African rand used in financialmarkets. The Commission did not say if the fines should relateto the global revenues of the banks in question or just theirSouth African business.

The probe found that from at least 2007, traders at thesebanks had an agreement to collude on prices for bids, offers andbid-offer spreads for spot trades involving the rand and theU.S. dollar, the Commission said.

"They also created fictitious bids and offers, distortingdemand and supply in order to achieve their profit motives," theCommission said in a statement.

The Commission launched the investigation in April 2015,joining a global clampdown on price-rigging in currency marketsthat has led to dozens of traders fired and big banks finedaround $10 billion in total.

The Commission, which investigates anti-trust practices,said it had referred the case to the Competition Tribunal forprosecution.

Other banks named in the case are Investec, JPMorgan, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse Group, Commerzbank AG, Standard New York SecuritiesInc, Macquarie Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, ANZ Banking Group Ltd, Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Africa, part of the Barclays Plc. (Editing by Susan Fenton and David Holmes)