Rohan Ramchandani, senior currency trader and former head of European spot trading at Citigroup in London, was fired following a global investigation into alleged efforts to manipulate foreign exchange markets. Ramchandani, who was already on leave since October, was also a member of the Bank of England’s foreign exchange joint standing committee’s subgroup for chief dealers, a forum for banks and brokers to discuss market issues.
A spokesman for Citigroup confirmed his departure but no further details were given about its circumstances.
The former Citigroup banker was one of the members of a specific chat room that counted some of the most influential traders in London as its members. Following recent scandals this chat room is now at the centre of a probe involving authorities in the U.K., U.S., Asia and Europe with investigators looking into whether traders at some of the biggest banks in the world cooperated to benefit unduly from shifts in the $5.3 trillion / day currencies market. The group drew attention since it also included other suspects such as Richard Usher, a former RBS trader who moved to JPMorgan as the head of spot forex trading in 2010, and Matt Gardiner, who joined Standard Chartered after UBS and Barclays.
The global probe is the latest to focus on benchmark rates after investigations into the Libor interbank lending rate. As reported here, so far 12 foreign exchange traders at global banks have been suspended. The probe into these allegations intended to clarify whether traders colluded to artificially influence crucial benchmarks in their favour when trading currencies during short windows of 60 seconds.
BETTER FINANCE reaffirms its concerns over the so-called Libor scandals and calls for the European authorities to draw a line under the 'no man's land' where currency markets operate when it comes to supervision. It is clear that individual investors and consumers would then benefit from a transparent and competitive market with reasonable prices for currencies.
Please read here the Financial Times article.