Barclays faces minimum $100m fine for foreign exchange abuse

British bank Barclays is set to pay a substantial fine to resolve allegations that it abused foreign exchange markets through its electronic trading platform by next month, presenting an early test for the bank's incoming chief Jes Staley.

The US department of financial services is likely to impose a penalty of at least $100 million for the alleged electronic trading abuses. This follows the $485 million that the bank agreed to pay New York’s banking regulator in May over manipulation of forex spot trading.

The looming penalty comes as US agencies' far-reaching forex investigation also pursues fresh claims against Deutsche Bank.

Rating agency Moody's calculated this week that bank litigation costs since the 2008 financial crisis have reached almost $219 billion, with the bulk of the burden shouldered by US banks, led by Bank of America with provisions of about $70 billion.

The pain was now shifting to their European counterparts, Moody’s said.

The latest fine facing Barclays is smaller than May’s because there is a reportedly lower volume of trades at issue. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015