Barclays fined 26m pounds over gold pricing

Barclays Bank Plc, British second largest bank in assets term, has been fined 26 million pounds (about 43 million U.S. dollars) for gold pricing misconduct, said Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Friday. The bank failed to adequately manage conflicts of interest between itself and its customers, and has been detected systems and controls failings in relation to the Gold Fixing, said the Britain's financial industry watchdog in a statement. These failures continued from 2004 to 2013, added FCA. The incident occurred on June 28, 2012, when former Barclays trader Daniel James Plunkett took advantage of the defects of the bank's systems and controls to influence that day's 3 p.m. Gold Fixing, and thereby profited at a customer's expense, according to FCA. Plunkett has also been fined 95,600 pounds and banned from performing any function in relation to any regulated activity, noted FCA. Tracey McDermott, FCA's director of enforcement and financial crime, said in a statement: "A firm's lack of controls and a trader's disregard for a customer's interests have allowed the financial services industry's reputation to be sullied again." Plunkett's misconducts took place a day after Barclay was fined a record 290 million pounds for manipulating the London interbank offered rate. The Gold Fixing is an important price-setting mechanism which provides market users the opportunity to buy and sell gold at a single quoted price. Since joining the Gold Fixing on June 7, 2004, Barclays has contributed to setting the price of gold in the Gold Fixing, said FCA. (1 pound = 1.68 U.S. dollars)