Treasury Committee publishes FSA’s response to its LIBOR report
21 February 2013
The Treasury Select Committee has today published the FSA’s response to the Committee’s report, ‘Fixing LIBOR: some preliminary findings’.
The Committee Chairman's Comments
Our inquiry uncovered appalling behaviour and serious failings at many levels in Barclays; on the trading floors, on compliance desks and amongst senior management.
It is now clear that these failures were not limited to a single institution. The systemic rigging of important rates appears to have been pervasive in the banking industry over a long period of time.
Serious regulatory shortcomings also came to light. It is only right that the FSA has had to shoulder its share of the blame for this scandal.
Following the Treasury Committee’s inquiry, significant steps have been taken to reform LIBOR as well as to reform the culture and practices within our banks and regulators.
We must have more confidence that such behaviour will not happen again. Much work remains to be done.
The welcome adoption of judgement-led regulation can help.
We will attempt to monitor the extent to which the new regulators, respectively the FPC and the PRA, put these words into action.
Mervyn King has made clear that the new approach need not necessarily require greater resources.
What is clearly needed is a replacement of box-ticking intervention with the application of grey matter.
The Treasury Committee will consider the FSA’s review into its own awareness of inappropriate LIBOR submissions when it is finalised.
Some of the evidence we heard suggests early warning signs may have gone unheeded.
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