Johnathan Paoli
THE Standard Bank Group’s CEO, Sim Tshabalala, has insisted on the bank’s innocence regarding the Rand-US Dollar manipulation scandal that was exposed in 2017 and caused outrage in South Africa, saying their hands were clean.
This follows the Competition Commission’s findings that UK-based Standard Chartered Bank – one of more than two dozen institutions that are implicated – has admitted to fixing bids, offers, bid-offer spreads, the spot exchange rate, and the exchange rate, among other things, and further agreed to pay an administrative penalty of R42.7 million.
Tshabalala said that while it accepted the possibility of manipulation on behalf of certain parties within general transactions, it remained adamant on the fact that the bank played no role in the grand manipulation scheme.
The CEO said that the bank conducted its own internal investigations and proceeded to hand over all subsequent information they gathered in a bid to effectively engage corruption within the banking industry.
“We have looked at our call logs, we’ve looked at documentation, we’ve looked at people’s calls, and I can tell you our traders conduct themselves with impeccable rectitude, as do our salesmen and women. We’ve found no such evidence,” Tshabalala said.
However, the British multinational bank, Standard Chartered, was recently fined almost R42 million by The Competition Commission after it admitted to engaging in currency manipulation.
Almost 30 commercial banks have come under fire for alleged price fixing involving the rand and many organisations and ordinary South Africans reeling under the impact of high interest rates, rob losses and load shedding, have reacted with outrage at the news and are demanding stiffer sanctions including the withdrawal of trading licences.
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