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JP Morgan fined £572m

Investment bank JP Morgan has been fined £572 million ($920 million) by UK and US regulators over the 'London Whale' trading scandal - the nickname of a bond market trader who was reported to be making trades worth up to $10 trillion in April 2012.

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  1. Laura Kuenssberg

JP Morgan a reminder of fractured public-bank relationship

For the last few years we have heard time and again, bank chief executives and others saying: " We are trying to clean things up, we get it, we know we have to change our culture."

And here low and behold, this was going on in London in a big international bank about 18 months ago - and then management tried to cover it up.

They did not want to acknowledge to the authorities what was really going on.

Investment bank JP Morgan has been fined £572 million ($920 million) by UK and US regulators. Credit: Reuters

What was striking to me today was that authorities are clearly concerned that the message has not got right down to the trading floor, where people are actually doing these deals day in day out.

There have been lots of changes to the rules, but if there are loopholes still there which clearly there appear to be, that makes it much harder for the people at the top of banks who do try to persuade us all the time that they get it and want things to change to be taken seriously.

It makes it harder for the rest of us to trust what banks are getting up to.

We've said it before, I'll say it again it is difficult for our economy and the economy right around the world to get motoring again if that relationship between banks and the public is still fractured in some way.

And that is what this story is a reminder of to me.

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