BNP Paribas fined by NY regulator over forex manipulation

French bank BNP Paribas (BNPP) has today been struck with a $350 million USD fine by New York State’s banking regulator. The bank is being held responsible for its Foreign Exchange “Cartel” manipulating foreign exchange rates, engaging in collusion, executing fake trades, coordinating trades to enhance profits at customers’ expense, and improperly sharing confidential customer info for many years.

The settlement is the latest for BNP Paribas, which has done a fine enough job of staying out of any trouble in recent months. Indeed, the group has largely steered clear of fines in the banking sector, with other rival lenders seeing the majority of attention for other transgressions. The last major setback the group suffered was last year when the SEC imposed a $4.0 million fine on its Wealth Management Unit.

The New York’s Department of Financial Services determined that a few BNP traders and salespeople managed to collude in online chat rooms with the ultimate intent of manipulating the currency prices. As such, traders executed fake trades to influence exchange rates across select emerging market currencies, also improperly sharing confidential customer information with traders at other large banks.

The actual period of the misconduct dated back to between 2007 and 2011, per a regulatory statement. As the measures took place around a decade ago, BNP Paribas likely avoided an even larger fine given that several of these employees have already been terminated, while the bank also pledged to improve its oversight measures.

BNPP operates in the United States through its BNP Paribas S.A., New York branch, which is supervised and regulated by the Department of Financial Services as a licensed foreign bank branch in New York State.