The FCA has fined Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland, both part of Lloyds Banking Group, £105m for serious misconduct relating to Libor, the Special Liquidity Scheme and the Repo Rate benchmark.
Of the total amount, £70m relates to attempts to manipulate the fees payable to the Bank of England for the firms’ participation in the SLS, a government scheme designed to support British banks during the financial crisis.
Altogether, Lloyds Banking Group said it had reached settlements totalling £218m to resolve issues around Libor and the Repo Rate with UK and US federal authorities.
Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s director of enforcement and financial crime, said: “The abuse of the SLS is a novel feature of this case but the underlying conduct and the underlying failings - to identify, mitigate and monitor for obvious risks - are not new.
“If trust in financial services is to be restored then market participants need to ensure they are learning the lessons from, and avoiding the mistakes of, their peers.”
António Horta-Osório, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, said: “The behaviours identified by these investigations are absolutely unacceptable. We take the findings of these investigations, which relate to issues from some years ago, extremely seriously.
“Together, the board and the group’s management team have taken vigorous action over the past three years to prevent this kind of behaviour, through closing or reducing our legacy investmentbanking activities.”
He added that the group has implemented a customer-focused, UK-centric strategy, changed its culture and values, improved systems and processes, and implemented more effective controls.
The FCA said this was the joint third highest fine imposed by the regulator or its predecessor, the FSA.
