Bashing Barclays Badly

I noted yesterday that I’d set the recorder to catch Jerry del Messier’s appearance before the Treasury Select Committee. Sadly, when I got home I found I had filled my hard disc with several hours of BBC News 24, which contained no more than 7 minutes of coverage, including “analysis” of the session. Clearly the BBC is not so bothered to get to the heart of the matter.

Never mind, I watched a bit on Parliament TV this morning, after warming up with some live coverage (thanks BBC) of Mervyn King’s appearance, flanked by his deputies and Adair Turner, like a bunch of schoolboys caught reading top-shelf magazines behind the bike-sheds.

Unlike the BBC, the MPs are trying gamely, but you really have to wonder if the process works properly. Maybe just two or three of them should ask all the questions, to avoid lines of questioning being dropped just as it gets interesting, as keeps happening when it’s another Member’s turn for a few minutes in the limelight.

Still, I wasn’t disappointed by del Messier’s grilling (you missed broadcasting some great live TV, BBC), but a couple of points seemed to pass the MPs by.

First, it finally became clear that Bob Diamond’s infamous memo was sent the day after the phone call it records, as suggested by the timestamp. Here’s the full memo:

“From: Diamond, Bob: Barclays Capital

Sent: 10/30/2008 14:19:54

To: Varley, John: Barclays PLC

Cc: del Missier, Jerry: Barclays Capital (NYK)

Subject: File note: Bank of England call

Fyi

File Note: Call to RED [Diamond] from Paul Tucker, Bank of England

Date: 29th October 2008

Further to our last call, Mr Tucker reiterated that he had received calls from a number of senior figures within Whitehall to question why Barclays was always toward the top end of the Libor pricing. His response was ‘you have to pay what you have to pay’. I asked if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transactions, his response ‘oh, that would be worse’.

I explained again our market rate driven policy and that it had recently meant that we appeared in the top quartile and on occasion the top decile of the pricing. Equally I noted that we continued to see others in the market posting rates at levels that were not representative of where they would actually undertake business. This latter point has on occasion pushed us higher than would otherwise appear to be the case. In fact, we are not having to ‘pay up’ for money at all.

Mr Tucker stated the levels of calls he was receiving from Whitehall were ‘senior’ and that while he was certain we did not need advice, that it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently.

RED [Diamond]”

I was surprised, to say the least, that none of the Select Committee noticed this delay the first time round when they might have asked Diamond what he did in the intervening time (he phoned del Messier, it turns out, though I recollect Diamond didn’t recollect this). Diamond, I remember, testified at some length that he was concerned that Barclays might appear weak whilst trying to finalise its life-saving Middle East share sale. Surely he would not have waited a day before relaying the message from Tucker.

Second, the MPs are completely failing to distinguish between different periods of Libor fiddling. From 2005-7 traders in Barclays and elsewhere were persuading the rate-setters to submit a Barclays Libor rate in order to try to make money. This is appalling – see the FSA’s report (pdf) for the salacious details. But after 2007 Libor wasn’t working. Interbank lending wasn’t happening. The FSA write:

“In the latter half of 2007 and throughout 2008, lending in London for maturities longer than overnight came to a virtual standstill and there was extreme dislocation in global money markets.”

So the banks were just making a judgement as to what they might be able to borrow at. Since it was just a guess, it stands to reason that if they were guessing higher than every other bank they may as well guess lower. “Low-balling” Libor was done for an entirely different reason from mid 2007 on – top-down from management, rather than bottom-up by traders – so as not to appear weak.

What strikes me is that by releasing Diamond’s file note, Barclays have successfully steered the MPs away from the criminality and into the increasingly murky area of Libor-setting during the financial crisis. Damage-limitation PR, basically, though that’s fairly moot from Diamond’s point of view right now, but the MPs really should have tried to distinguish between the two periods. The symptoms may be similar – dodgy Libor submissions – but the causes are different. Both hayfever and a cold might cause you to sneeze, but you’d treat the two conditions quite differently.

The Committee session with Mervyn King this morning was quite different. The Governor didn’t seem to realise he was in the dock. He was shirty with his inquisitors, and even tried to talk over one. And Andrew Tyrie seemed genuinely cross. He shared the concerns I expressed yesterday. Trouble is, dealing with King is like having a 6 foot shark on a line intended for mackerel. He seems to be pulling in several different directions at once. One minute he’s the regulator (on the grounds that the function is being handed back to the BoE), the next he’s not. One minute Diamond is being fired because of the outcry over Libor, the next it’s to do with a letter from the FSA (the Guardian has posted it here).

I hope and expect Tyrie’s report to be critical of the Governor, and the governance of the Bank of England.

Here are a couple of questions to think about:
– why doesn’t the Bank of England have separate Chairman (and Board) and Chief Executive roles? The Governor would then be – as the Chief Exec – at least accountable to someone.
– if this is what happens when they don’t like the “culture” (or just the CEO) at a bank/a few corners are cut on a poorly defined technical procedures during a once in a lifetime crisis (which all the other banks might have been doing as well)/a few traders find a new way to cheat a poorly-defined system (which might have been happening at all the banks) – delete as applicable, depending why you think Diamond was sacked – then what are they going to do when a bank does something really bad? Like, for example, allowing widespread money-laundering, as HSBC seems to have done.