ALBANY, N.Y. – New York regulators say the British bank Barclays will pay a $150 million penalty and fire an executive for misconduct related to its automated electronic foreign exchange trading.
The Department of Financial Services says the misconduct concerns Barclays’ “Last Look” system, and the bank is terminating its global head of electronic fixed income, currencies, and commodities automated flow trading.
Regulators say Barclays used the system in certain instances to automatically reject client orders that would be unprofitable for the bank because of subsequent price swings during milliseconds-long hold periods.
Barclays says the settlement concerns trading in 2009-2014 primarily for internal systems and control failures, and the penalty will be reflected in its fourth-quarter results.
In May, the bank settled an enforcement case related to spot foreign exchange trading for $2.4 billion with U.S. and New York authorities.
