Barclays Bank Plc

On 20 May 2015 the FCA fined Barclays Bank £284,432,000 — then the largest penalty ever imposed by the FCA or its predecessor the FSA — for failing to control its London foreign exchange business between 1 January 2008 and 15 October 2013. Barclays traders formed tight-knit groups with traders at other banks in electronic chat rooms, sharing confidential client information and colluding to move benchmark exchange rates in their favour, putting the bank's interests ahead of clients and the wider market. Because Barclays had not joined the five other banks that settled with the FCA in November 2014, it received only a 20% discount; the fine would otherwise have been £355,540,000. The same day Barclays reached settlements with US authorities that took its total forex-related penalties to around $2.4 billion.