Dallas, Texas 10/22/2013 (Financialstrend) – The S&P 500 index tracked Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) has a market capitalization of $154 billion. After being forced to seek Government help to remain on its feet during the 2007/08 financial turmoil induced by the bank’s excessive exposure to caustic sub-prime notes it implemented a painful restructuring process. This saw the bank with annual income of close to $35 billion over the trailing twelve months sell of non-core business and emerge leaner. The reduced span of operations also helped the banking firm implement new processes changes designed to provide its management with oversight over compliance and risk assessment.
Post the last week development of the bank being investigated by authorities along with few of its peers for possible violation of banking rules, its management would be hoping that the oversight procedures incorporated post the 2007 debacle will hold them in good stead.
On October 21 it was reported that “The Commodity Futures Trading Commission” has officially asked few major financial players involved in currency trading to dig into their records and identify any relevant information which points to wrong doing or collusion among traders with the intent of manipulating and rigging the currency market. Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) and Deutsche Bank AG are two of the prominent banks which have received this communique along with host of other players as of unnamed sources who have shared this information with Wall Street Journal.
In order to be compliant with the directive, Citi which is 3 largest U.S Bank and the German bank will have to scrutinize electronic records including email and chat transcripts occurring on their enterprise network and hand over any suspicious or increment documents to the investigators.
Readers should note that the current investigations became necessary after the U.K financial authorities started prosecuting of traders belonging to various banks for their role in rigging the currency markets in their individual capacity by colluding with each other.
