Though we cannot fine bank regulators, we should at least shame them, for the mother of all bank-credit markets riggings.

Sir, I refer to FT’s front-page report by Gina Chon, Caroline Binham and Laura Noonan “Six big banks fined $5.6bn over rigging of forex markets”, May 20.

Andrew McCabe, FBI’s assistant director is quoted saying “The activities undermined transparent market-based exchange rates that serve as a critical benchmark to the economy.”

Undoubtedly, the rigging of foreign exchange rates, and of the Libor rate, needs to be condemned in the strongest way… But, for that to really happen, it must be through mechanisms that does as a minimum not cause Lex describe these in terms of being “astonishingly opaque”… and commenting in “Bank fines: the wrong reaction” that “how the agencies decide what fines to impose is a mystery to everyone, the banks included”.

But, that said, in terms of the real consequences to the real economy, all that fraudulent market rigging is peanuts when compared to the mother of all market riggings, that which bank regulators, probably unwittingly, did to how bank credits were allocated.

I mean let’s look at Basel I, II and III. For the purpose of deciding how much equity a bank has to hold against a credit they establish: Sovereigns = 0% risk weight; Citizens = 100% risk weight. Really, is that not as big as market riggings come?

How much more bank credit at low rates did not governments, the regulators’ bosses, receive because of that? How much less bank credit did not all the SMEs, entrepreneurs and start-ups around the world, receive because of that.

Of course we cannot fine regulators (unless we can prove bad intentions… like ideological manipulation)… but should we not shame them at least?

@PerKurowski