Barclays (BCS) Penalized $560K By CFTC For Inaccurate LTRs

Barclays (LON:BARC) PLC (NYSE:BCS) was dealt a fine by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) for failing to submit accurate large trader reports (“LTRs”) for physical commodity swap positions. The bank will be settling the charges by paying $560,000 in civil penalty and desist from committing any further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC Regulations.

According to the statement issued by CFTC, large trader reporting for physical commodity swaps is essential to its ability to conduct effective surveillance of markets in the U.S. physical commodity futures and economically equivalent swaps.

However, it was found that Barclays routinely filed erroneous reports from Jul 2012 through Mar 2013. Further in 2014, certain LTRs submitted by Barclays reported inaccurate information due to erroneous prices in crude oil, natural gas, gasoline, heating oil and agricultural products which reported Barclays’ positions incorrect in various commodities.

The data processing and reporting systems used by Barclays in generating the LTRs detected additional issues of importance but were unable to rectify the errors before Barclays submitted the LTRs to CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight (DMO). Barclays was acknowledged for detecting the errors, self-reporting it to the DMO and subsequently submitting some corrected reports.

However, from Jul 2012 through Nov 2012, Barclays failed to maintain the required records and presenting complete corrected reports as some of the underlying data got misplaced unintentionally.

Currently, Barclays holds a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Some better-ranked foreign banks include The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TO:TD) , Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY) and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE:SMFG) . All three sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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