Barclays faces second fine over clients' money

The bank and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are understood to be in discussions over the penalty, likely to significantly outstrip the £1.1m the bank paid for failing to ringfence client assets from its own over an eight-year period.

Since the financial crisis, regulators have stepped up scrutiny of clients' asset segregation. It is believed that any new fine would relate to new allegations, not the same issues as the previous fine.

It is believed that any penalty could number in the tens of millions, although it would be less than the £59.5m Barclays paid the FCA's predecessor, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), to settle claims related to rigging the Libor interest rate benchmark in 2012.

In January 2011, the FSA said up to £752m of client money had been at risk, with the funds tangled up with Barclays Capital’s own assets between 2002 and 2009. The regulator said clients had not suffered any losses, but that their money was placed at “significant risk”.

The FSA fined JP Morgan £33.3m over the issue in 2010, the biggest penalty to date related to asset segregation.

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