20 More Banks were Rigging Interest Rates: British Bankers Now Facing Criminal Inquiry Over Scandal That was Kept Secret for Years!

• 20 more banks were rigging interest rates: British bankers now facing criminal inquiry over scandal that was kept secret for years! 
  By James Chapman, Becky Barrow, Ruth Sunderland and Rob Davies, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ 
  – Barclays shares drop 15 per cent as pressure on Diamond grows
  – George Osborne promises new criminal sanctions for market abusers
  – RBS, HSBC and Lloyds all named as under investigation as scandal widens
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  Hundreds of bankers across three continents are embroiled in the interest-rate fixing scandal that has left Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond fighting to save his job. As pressure intensified on Britain’s highest paid banking boss to quit, MPs heard a string of other financial institutions across the world were under investigation. At least 20 banks are believed to be under suspicion, with growing demands for a criminal investigation.
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  Barclays’ shares crashed by 15.5 per cent in a day as the implications sank in, wiping £3.7billion from its value, with other banks also hit. Barclays has been fined £290million after devastating emails revealed that its traders manipulated the London Interbank Rate (Libor) – the rate at which banks lend money to each other. Chancellor George Osborne told the Commons the exchanges ‘read like an epitaph to an age of irresponsibility’.
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  On the blackest day for Britain’s finance industry since the 2008 economic crisis:
  • Serious Fraud Office investigators were revealed to be in talks with financial watchdogs over the scandal
  • David Cameron and Ed Miliband piled pressure on Mr Diamond to resign
  • Barclays and other banks were braced for a damning verdict today in an official report on mis-selling of complex loans to 28,000 small firms
  • Mr Osborne promised new criminal sanctions for those guilty of market abuse
  • Downing Street faced a growing clamour for a judge-led public inquiry into the ethics of Britain’s banks
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