Martin Wheatley, the FCA chief executive, has already said that the rigging of currency markets is as bad as the manipulation of Libor, and the fines facing the banks would be the regulators biggest-ever collection of fines for the same offence.
The Serious Fraud Office has already confirmed it has opened a criminal investigation into “allegations of fraudulent conduct in the foreign exchange market”.
Regulators around the world, including the UK, US, Switzerland and Hong Kong, are looking into the alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates but the SFO’s intervention was the first official criminal investigation.
London is where around 40pc of foreign exchange trading takes place and traders are alleged to have colluded via online chatrooms with names such as the “Bandits’ Club” and the “Dream Team”.
Concerns revolve around a benchmark called the 4pm “fix”, which is used by pension and insurance funds to dictate what they should pay for foreign currencies.
The FCA declined to comment.
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