Barclays' investment arm has been fined £2.45m by the
Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to report its
investment details correctly.
The problems were caused by errors in the bank's
IT systems which interact and send information about trades to
a central system for reporting.
The faults at Barclays Capital emerged during an 11-month period
during 2007 and 2008, when the bank made almost 60 million
transactions.
Barclays Capital said in a statement, "We have worked
constructively and in full cooperation with the FSA throughout the
investigation. The regulatory reporting errors were caused by
inaccuracies in our data feeds to the FSA. No counterparties,
clients, or financial reports were affected in any way."
The FSA said accurate reporting is essential for the watchdog to
look out for potential market abuse.
Alexander Justham, FSA director of markets, said, "Complete and
accurate transaction reports are an essential component of the
FSA's market monitoring work. Barclays' reporting failures could
have a damaging impact on our ability to detect and investigate
suspected market abuse.
Investment firms
must send reports about trades to the FSA at the end of every
day. The reports rely on many complex systems linking together.
Changes to one system can cause problems for others.
Barclays Capital has fixed the problems.