LONDON - UBS has suspended six additional traders on three continents as an investigation into potential manipulation of the $5-trillion-a-day currency markets widens, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Swiss bank has placed on leave three traders in New York, two in Zurich and one in Singapore as part of its internal review, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The bank last year suspended a senior currency trader in Zurich.
Some of the traders involved have been placed on paid leave, according to one of the people.
The suspensions are the latest escalation of a series of regulatory and internal investigations that are examining whether traders at some of the world’s largest banks colluded to improperly influence the foreign exchange markets
UBS declined to comment on Thursday.
Some of the suspensions were first reported by Bloomberg News.
Regulators in Britain, the United States, Switzerland and other countries have all begun investigations into whether traders tried to manipulate closely watched currency benchmark rates.
More than two dozen traders have been placed on leave or fired as a result of internal investigations at several large financial institutions involved in foreign exchange trading, including Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Deutsche Bank, the largest player in the currency trading market, with a share of about 15 percent, and Citigroup have each fired employees as a result of their own investigations.
The Bank of England also has suspended an employee amid its internal review into whether central bank officials knew of or condoned manipulation of the currency markets. The central bank is investigating whether the staff member properly complied with its internal control policies - namely by alerting superiors within the bank to any reports of potential wrongdoing.
None of the banks or any of the suspended or fired traders has been accused of wrongdoing by the authorities.
The UBS suspensions have surfaced less than two weeks after the bank disclosed in its annual report that it was conducting an internal review of its precious metals business as part of its examination of its foreign exchange operations.
Regulators in Britain and Germany are examining whether the benchmark rates for gold and silver prices may have been manipulated. As scrutiny has mounted, banks have been scaling back or leaving parts of their commodities businesses.
