How can the banks ever be taken seriously?

[BrainsTracy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14927432
when this sort of thing can happen?
The irony is that if the guy had been any good and made money he'd be getting a 6 figure bonus! Would the Police be involved if he'd got it right? After all it's would still be "unauthorised".

[Bobbisox]

Maybe changing the B to a W where the banks are concerned Tracy :-)

[Gromit]

You would think that after the first rogue trader the banks would have rigorously tightened proceedures to make a repeat impossible, but this seems to crop up every few years.

Maybe they turn a blind eye when it works in their favour, and overall they make more money even if occassionally it goes wrong and they lose a load of money?

[Old_Geezer]

My take is that the job involves taking risks with amounts of money that would make most normal folk a nervous wreck. So it attracts those who naturally ignore possible disastrous consequences and with apparent nerves of steel, gamble with the pot. If they get into trouble the same personality will feel less concerned about hiding the problem until they have solved it with a large win, and which point they're back in the game again.

Sure, huge wins and subsequent bonuses for not creating wealth for the world but simply attracting it, is the norm. But it is a wafer thin difference between choosing the wining "investment" and buying into a loser. Just saying that in my opinion that environment attracts a certain type who will be more likely to get into such trouble, but will not be investigated if they happen to be successful.

[jno]

bankers who defraud their emplooyers are in trouble. I'd recommend they stick to defrauding the public instead; no harm will then come to them.

[emmie]

It's happened before, and it will happen again, you cannot guard against rogue traders, no more than you can guard your child from getting chickenpox, you only hope the outbreak doesn't last too long.

[jake-the-peg]

//you cannot guard against rogue traders, no more than you can guard your child from getting chickenpox//


That sounds rather complacent

Do you think you can't guard against any form of fraud or theft?

How about burglary?

Of course you can guard against this sort of thing - clearly UBS did not have the proper checks and balances in place

[emmie]

then why did nick leeson get away with it for so long. Or any of the others that came afterwards. It's not complacent, you can't guard against burglars, if they are determined to get into your property, and the only difference with banks, is they have a lot more money than you or I

[rov1100]

And after all the bail out they can still get away with it! I reckon by 2019 the whole world will become bankrupt.

[jake-the-peg]

There was an excuse for Nick Leeson - people hadn't really woken up to the scale of the problem

Now we've had the French guy a few years back and now another.

The banks will have procedures to stop this sort of thing happening - procedures that clearly weren't being followed at UBS.

People see burglars and sqatters and they wan't them locked up and the key thrown away.

Someone does something like this and the reaction is "Oh well it'll always happen"

It seems like some sort of victimless crime - I'll bet UBS stock holders aren't so sanguine

[Old_Geezer]

I suspect those banks that have tight procedures and enforce them put a stranglehold on the ablity of their high fliers to win massively. Probably down to whether one wishes to leave the risk high for higher potential gains, or lower the risk and make steady if unspectacular gains. If they can get away with the, "didn't realise", justification, and claim lessons will be learnt, then there is a temptation to go down the high risk route and outperform your rivals.