Barclays fined for exposing its clients to risk
BARCLAYS was fined nearly £38m yesterday for putting £16.5bn of clients’ assets at risk, City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced yesterday.
Its investment banking arm failed to properly segregate the funds, the regulator found.
And at times, problems in account naming and data wrongly suggested the assets belonged to Barclays, rather than the clients.
“Barclays failed to apply the lessons from our previous enforcement actions, numerous industry-wide warnings, and exposed its clients to unnecessary risk,” said FCA enforcement director Tracey McDermott. “All firms should be clear after Lehman that there is no excuse for failing to safeguard client assets.”
Had the bank collapsed, the failings could have put clients’ funds at risk. The failings occurred between November 2007 and January 2012.
“Barclays has subsequently enhanced its systems to resolve these issues and to ensure we have the requisite processes in place,” said a spokesperson.
“No client has suffered any loss as a consequence of this weakness in our processes which existed prior to January 2012.”