Macquarie fined £13m after junior trader posts 400 fake trades to cover losses

Australia's Macquarie Bank has been fined £13m by Britain’s financial regulator after a junior trader concealed trading losses by posting 400 fake trades.

The Financial Conduct Authority slammed Macquarie for “serious failings” and “significant weaknesses” in its systems after Travis Klein, who worked on the bank's London metals and bulks trading desk, managed to evade three internal controls for almost two years up to 2022.

The fictitious trades cost Macquarie Bank Limited (MBL) an estimated $57.8m to unwind but did not affect customers or the market overall, the FCA said on Tuesday.

"If MBL had taken timely action to plug these gaps in their systems and controls, this cost could have been substantially reduced or avoided altogether," it said.

Macquarie received 30% discount on the penalty for cooperating with the investigation.

Klein was banned from the financial services industry for acting dishonestly and without integrity and would have been fined £72,000 but pleaded successfully that he would have faced serious hardship if forced to pay.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com