LONDON: Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group said Monday it will pay £218 million in fines to British and US regulators, becoming the latest global lender to be fined for rigging inter-bank lending rates.

The punishment, worth $370 million or 276m euros, is the latest twist in the long-running Libor scandal that has badly tarnished the reputation of London as a financial centre.

Lloyds’s settlement is the seventh joint penalty handed out by the US and Britain as part of a long-running probe into attempts to manipulate benchmarks that set rates for trillions of dollars of financial transactions.

But in a letter released as part of the settlement, the Bank of England hinted that Lloyds could still face further action from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

Lloyds Banking Group said in its statement “it has reached settlements totalling £218m” regarding its submissions to the British Bankers’

Association (BBA) London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and Sterling Repo Rate.

Lloyds said the manipulation of submissions took place between May 2006 and 2009. The individuals involved have either left the group, been suspended or are subject to disciplinary proceedings, it added.

The bank will pay £62m and £51m respectively to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice in the United States.

Lloyds will also pay a total of £105m to Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014