By Ross Kelly
SYDNEY-- Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said it
has suspended seven staff pending investigations into suspected
manipulation of Australia's interest-rate benchmark.
Since 2012, Australia's corporate watchdog has been probing more
than a dozen local and foreign banks in relation to trading in
Australia's bank bill swap rate market. ANZ has also been
conducting its own internal investigation of possible
misconduct.
It could take some time before either investigation is
completed, Nigel Wilson, ANZ's chief risk officer, said in a
statement Wednesday. "In light of this, we are taking the
precaution of having seven staff involved in markets trading step
down pending completion of the investigation into practices."
The Australian figure, set daily by a group of 14 local and
offshore banks, is used to determine interbank lending rates,
providing a pricing reference for a range of financial products and
contracts.
The separate investigations come after a rate-fixing scandal
that has engulfed some of the world's largest financial
institutions. Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, is a
similar mechanism to Australia's bank bill swap rate but is used on
a much larger scale, including in European and U.S. financial
centers.
The Libor manipulation scandal has ensnared dozens of financial
institutions and individuals in a wide-ranging investigation
spanning almost a dozen countries. So far, it has netted billions
of dollars in penalties.
Some of the banks caught out in the Libor scandal are also
involved in setting Australia's bank bill swap rate.
The Australian arms of UBS AG, Royal Bank of Scotland PLC and
BNP Paribas SA have already paid billions of dollars in fines in
Australia after the country's corporate regulator, the Australian
Securities and Investment Commission, showed they had engaged in
rate-rigging. National Australia Bank Ltd. has also been penalized
by ASIC.
Write to Ross Kelly at ross.kelly@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires