5 banks expected to plead guilty to felony charges for rigging the price of foreign currencies.

Stay focussed. Volatility spike ahead.

Such stories used to conspiracy theories as recent as 2012!?

The day financial markets outlaw manipulation that's the day the markets will shutdown for good. All fin markets rely on manipulation to produce profits.

Five of the world's largest banks are to pay fines totalling $5.7bn (£3.6bn) for charges including manipulating the foreign exchange market.
Four of the banks - JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup and RBS - have agreed to plead guilty to US criminal charges.
The fifth, UBS, will plead guilty to rigging benchmark interest rates.
Barclays was fined the most, $2.4bn, as it did not join other banks in November to settle investigations by UK, US and Swiss regulators.
Barclays is also sacking eight employees involved in the scheme.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that "almost every day" for five years from 2007, currency traders used a private electronic chat room to manipulate exchange rates.

Banks under investigation in South Africa over alleged currency manipulation have hired the largest law firms in the country to advise them on the probe.

Bowman Gilfillan, ENSafrica and Webber Wentzel, three of the so-called Big Five legal firms, are assisting banks targeted in the South African Competition Commission probe, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Barclays Africa Group Ltd., Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Investec Ltd. are among 11 companies suspected by the regulator of using electronic messaging software to coordinate foreign exchange deals when quoting prices to customers, the commission said on May 19.

The investigation may have been triggered by a bank seeking to mitigate any measures taken against it for market misconduct, Nick Altini, the head of law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr’s competition practice, said in a phone interview on Thursday. Cliffe Dekker and Norton Rose Fulbright LLP complete the Big Five group.

Thanks Hisah, very encouraging.