ASIC to nail second big bank on misconduct
5 April 2016
http://www.afr.com/street-talk/asic-to-nail-second-big-bank-on-misconduct-20160403-gnxhry
The corporate regulator is set to ramp up its attack on potential bank-bill rate riggers and trader misconduct, launching action against a second major Australian bank as early as Tuesday.
Sources told Street Talk the action related to senior staff within another treasury division of a big four bank and the market chat functions used between them.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has delved into the communications of all the large banks and in this latest instance is said to have uncovered the use of aggressive and inappropriate language.
An ASIC spokesman declined to comment on specific cases saying only that the regulator was "looking at all the banks."
This follows the regulator kicking off court proceedings against ANZ Banking Group in March alleging traders manipulated the bank-bill-swap rate.
The ASIC documents were quite damning for ANZ in that the evidence suggested that traders knew exactly what they were doing and communicating their intentions.
Elsewhere in financial services, interested parties in the partial auction of Western Australia's Keystart mortgage portfolio are expecting to learn this week whether they are through to an indicative bid stage. More details on a firm timetable for the auction may also emerge.
Some of the parties that lodged an expression of interest by the end of March outlined their appetite for a transaction but only if the structure of the sale was changed to allow more autonomy around pricing and loan book management.
This column revealed Pepper Group and AFG were among parties that received teaser documents for the $1.6 billion Keystart loan portfolio sale.
Other names expected to run a ruler over the book, of which up to 40 per cent is on the block, include RESIMAC, Bank of Queensland and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.