经济学人352:操控货币市场

　　Finance and economics

财经商业

Rigging currency markets

操控货币市场

Bank, fix thyself

银行，作茧自缚

The Bank of England faces questions over its role in rigged forex deals.

英格兰面临银行非法操控外币市场的指控。

银行.jpg

ABOUT two dozen staff have so far been fired or suspended by banks for allegedly tampering 1 with foreign-exchange markets.

目前为止，总共约有24名员工因操纵外汇市场而被银行解雇或停职。

The latest twist in the saga 2 came from an unexpected quarter:

给这一漫长风波带来新波折的，是令人意想不到的一方：

on March 5th the Bank of England announced that it too had suspended an official following an internal investigation 3.

3月5日，英格兰银行经过内部调查后宣布将一名职员停职。

Awkwardly, Britain's central bank has gone from inquisitor to a possible protagonist 4 in the latest episode of financial-market chicanery 5.

尴尬的是，这次金融市场诈骗案的最新发展却使英国中央银行从审问官变为了犯罪嫌疑人。

Regulators globally have spent months investigating whether forex traders at big banks rigged global currency markets,

全球监管部门已花费数月来调查大型银行的外汇交易员们是否操纵了全球货币市场，

the world's largest, where turnover 6 is over $5 trillion a day.

这个世界最大的市场中的日流通额度达到了5万亿美元。

They suspect that bankers used their knowledge of what currencies their clients wanted to buy and sell to nudge market prices against them.

它们怀疑银行员工利用其客户想要买卖的现金种类的消息来推动市场上的汇率下跌。

If so, it would be the latest in a long list of financial benchmarks that have been rigged in ways that have bolstered 7 bankers' bonuses.

如果情况属实，这将成为那一长串被银行操纵以获取大量红利的基准数字中的新成员。

Fines are still pouring in over LIBOR, an interest rate used to peg 8 contracts worth trillions, which traders fiddled 9.

因操纵LIBOR一个涉及到数万亿合同的利率数字，而受到巨额罚款的银行仍在不断增加。

A plausible 10 defence from the bankers in the latest probe might be that they had told the Bank of England exactly what they were doing.

在最新一次调查中，银行员工辩称曾告知英格兰银行他们的具体行为。

Minutes from regular meetings between the central bank and traders showed widespread concern about the structure of the currency markets as early as 2006.

中央银行和交易员日常会议的记录文件显示，早在2006年货币市场的结构就引起了广泛关注。

All sides agreed that it was open to abuse because many clients,

各有关方面都认为这极易受到利用，因为众多顾客，

from multinational 11 companies to mutual 12 funds with foreign holdings,

从跨国公司到有外国资本的共同基金都以一个当日参考汇率来买卖货币，

tended to buy and sell currencies from their banks at a single daily reference rate, the London fix, which is calculated using trades executed in 60 seconds of trading at 4pm in London.

而伦敦定价是基于下午四点开始60秒钟内发生在伦敦的所有交易来计算的。

That means rigging the market for just a minute could reap rich rewards.

这意味着操纵市场一分钟就能带来丰厚的回报。

A bank that had agreed to sell lots of Canadian dollars, say,

比方说，一家银行在定价时为客户公司卖出大量加元，

for a corporate 13 customer could, in effect, depress that currency's price at the fix and so buy them for itself at a slightly lower price.

这就会压低货币的价格，从而使银行能以低一些的价格买入加元。

Bankers allegedly shared trading positions ahead of the fix, in internet messaging groups, among them The Cartel and The Bandit's Club.

据称，银行员工在在定价之前会在网络上共享交易头寸，比如在卡特尔和强盗俱乐部交易员从不以谨慎著称。

Regulators think this is tantamount to fraud; banks have argued they were injecting order in an otherwise unworkable marketplace.

监管部门认为这等同于诈骗；而银行辩解称，他们是在维护市场秩序，以保证市场的正常运行。

Notes taken by a trader at a meeting organised by the Bank of England in April 2012 suggest the traders had told the bank that they regularly shared information on forex positions.

一位交易员在2012年4月英格兰银行会议上的笔记显示，交易员已经告知银行他们定期共享外汇头寸的信息。

According to Bloomberg, the central bank at least tacitly endorsed 14 their attempts to match buyers and sellers,

根据彭博社消息，英国中央银行至少是默许了交易员匹配买家和卖家的行为，

purportedly 15 to limit the volatility 16 of everyone trading at the fix.

据称这是为了限制定价时各类交易的不稳定性。

Discomfitingly, the bank explicitly 17 said notes should not be taken at the meeting. Its own minutes reportedly shed no light on the matter.

尴尬的是，银行曾明确表示开会时是不允许记笔记。银行方面的会议记录中并未涉及相关事件。

The Bank of England denies it endorsed any wrongdoing.

英格兰银行否认自己曾允许违规操作。

After reviewing 15,000 e-mails, 21,000 chat messages and 40 hours of phone-call recordings 18, it said it had found no evidence its staff were privy 19 to any collusion.

该银行表示，在其调查的15,000封邮件、21,000聊天信息和40小时的电话记录中，没有证据显示员工私下勾结。

But one person at Threadneedle Street had breached 20 rigorous internal control processes,

但是针线街的一名员工确实违反了严格的内部控制流程，

and others have been reminded of the importance of keeping accurate records and telling higher-ups when they hear something noteworthy.

而其他人则被提醒了保管好准确的记录以及在得到重要消息时告知上级的重要性。

A fuller investigation has been launched.

进一步的调查正在进行中。

It is not the first time the central bank is painted as a conspirator 21 in financial fiddling—or at least a tolerator of it.

这已经不是英国中央银行第一次被描述为金融舞弊的谋划者或者至少是默许者。

In 2012 the then-deputy governor, Paul Tucker, had to flatly deny he had sanctioned duff LIBOR submissions 22 by Barclays at the height of the financial crisis.

在2012年，时任副行长的保罗塔克坚决否认自己在金融危机高潮时支持了巴克莱银行提交的经过粉饰的LIBOR意见书。

Chummy exchanges with Bob Diamond, at the time the boss at Barclays, made for awkward reading.

而他与时任巴克莱银行行长的鲍勃戴蒙德之间的暧昧谈话，又像是在自打耳光。

One potential problem for banks is that, unlike the people affected 23 by LIBOR, it is easy for those who were fleeced by their forex bankers to figure it out.

对银行而言，一个潜在的问题是这些被外汇交易员痛宰的客户不同于受到LIBOR影响的那些，他们更容易发现事实。

Perhaps the most curious thing is the timing 24: much of the currency-market skulduggery happened after the banks had already come under investigation for LIBOR.

最值得玩味的事情也许是，大量货币市场舞弊发生在银行已经因为LIOBR受到调查之后。

That suggests banks were slow to clean up the rotten culture on their trading floors,

这表明银行在清除交易市场上的陈腐文化时非常缓慢，

or that they genuinely thought their colluding ways had been officially endorsed.

或者他们是真的认为串通行为被官方允许。