Barclays Pays $4 Million in Swap Reporting Violations Case
British banking giant Barclays will pay $4 million to settle a U.S. regulatory case.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced Tuesday (Oct. 1) that it had settled charges against the bank for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations relating to swap reporting.
“Over the last year, the CFTC has imposed over $60 million in penalties on six registered swap dealers, including Barclays here, in connection with swap data reporting violations,” CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley said in a news release.
“This resolution, which also includes admissions, reflects the division’s ongoing commitment to ensure the costs of violating the law outweigh the costs of compliance.”
According to the CFTC, Barclays between 2018 and 2023 failed to make correct or timely reports of more than 5 million swap transactions, violating the exchange act and CFTC regulations. These failures were due to “misreporting due to the use of a duplicate swap identifier; incorrect reporting of primary economic terms; misreported time stamps; errors in connection with continuation data reporting; and late reporting,” the commission said.
The CFTC also noted Barclays’ “substantial cooperation” in the investigation, including “proactively flagging swap reporting issues” and voluntarily offering “detailed and specific information” about the violations.
In addition, the bank voluntarily said it would hire third-party vendors to review and validate its swap reporting processes.
PYMNTS has contacted Barclays for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.
In other Barclays news, last month saw a report that the bank was having difficulty selling a stake in its British merchant payments unit, due to differing views on that business’s valuation.
Brookfield, which manages more than $825 billion in assets, was among the private equity firms that backed away from bidding in recent months, chiefly because of Barclays’ asking price, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Sources said that the negotiations have been made more complicated by the takeover of Takepayments, one of Barclays’ partners in payments, adding this brought down revenues. However, one source said the bank is still open to unloading a stake in the business.
“As we confirmed at our February investor update, we are exploring a number of options for investment in our market-leading merchant acquiring business, including strategic partnerships,” a Barclays spokesperson told Reuters.
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