外匯操縱該問責的不只是交易員

The penny, or whatever currency has just been rigged, may finally have dropped. Prime responsibility for rigging the foreign exchange markets rests with the coterie of dealers who were directly involved. But no one emerges unblemished.

英鎊，或者無論何種剛剛受到操縱的貨幣，最終都可能貶值。雖然說操縱外匯市場的主要責任落在一小撮直接涉事的交易員身上，但所有人都難脫干係。

Professional traders smart enough to have worked their way into top positions at some of the world’s leading financial institutions were perfectly capable of understanding that fixing the fix was wrong. It was a benchmark on which many other financial valuations were struck, making the need for probity obvious to all market professionals. Ignorance is not a credible excuse.

那些足夠聰明、一路爬上一些全球頂尖金融機構最高職位的職業交易員，完全能夠明白，操縱定盤價是錯誤的。它是其他許多金融價值計算的基準，所有市場專業人士顯然有必要在這方面保持誠實。無知不是令人信服的藉口。

But if the dealers involved must take most of the blame, the Financial Conduct Authority is right to criticise the traders’ managers. The chain of command on trading floors runs up from senior dealers to desk heads, departmental managers and all the way up to the board. Front line controls are supplemented by oversight from risk managers and compliance officers. For all three lines of defence to have failed, in so many institutions, for so long, suggests an indigenous bias to optimism among those in charge: this was a systemic collapse of good judgment.

但如果說涉案交易員必須承擔大部分責任，那麼英國金融市場行爲監管局(FCA)批評這些交易員的經理也是正確的。交易部門的指令鏈從高級交易員到交易主管、部門經理，最後一直向上延伸到董事會。除了前臺控制以外，還應該輔以風險經理和合規人員的監督。長期以來這麼多機構中的三道防線全都失效，表明了那些主管人員固有的樂觀傾向：這是良好判斷的系統性崩潰。

Banking regulators might also reflect on their mindset. They were busy saving the global financial system in the period from 2008 to 2013 covered by the fines, perhaps so busy that they failed to turn a critical eye on the system that had so recently failed the world economy. It took a whistleblower and some investigative journalism to do a job that regulators were meant to be doing and for all the high marks that the authorities now get for firm action in cleaning up the mess, they need to look very hard at themselves.

銀行業監管機構或許也會反思自己的心態。它們從2008年到2013年忙於挽救全球金融體系，同時開出大量罰單，或許忙得都顧不上把批判的眼光投向最近讓全球經濟失望的金融體系。本該由監管機構做的事情，卻由告密者和一些新聞調查人員做了。儘管有關當局現在由於採取堅決措施清理亂局而受到很高的評價，但他們有必要深刻地反省自身。

The direct evidence of market manipulation lies in the electronic trail from the dealers’ online chat rooms, but suspicious pricing patterns in and around the daily 4pm currency fix were obvious in hindsight. The BoE has its own dealers operating in forex markets; it appears that they failed to notice such patterns. This is a familiar story; they also failed to notice similar behaviour surrounding the Libor benchmark in the interbank lending market. Why?

操縱市場的直接證據在於交易員在線聊天室的電子痕跡，但事後來看，每日下午4點匯率定盤前後的定價模式也是明顯可疑的。英國央行(BOE)在外匯市場有自己的交易員；他們似乎未能注意到此類模式。這聽起來有些耳熟；他們也未能注意到圍繞銀行間借貸市場上倫敦銀行間同業拆借利率(Libor)的類似行爲。原因何在？

A meeting of BoE officials and senior forex dealers in 2006 discussed manipulation of currency markets. The fact that this discussion took place invites questions about what the Old Lady knew; the bank has conducted an independent inquiry and concluded that none of its officials were aware of market rigging. Although the BoE has a long history of generously interpreting its own actions – dating back to a whitewash Board of Banking Supervision inquiry into the 1995 Barings scandal and extending up to Libor – we must accept that none of its officials knew what was happening. That being the case, questions need to be asked about their competence. After all, the misconduct was detectable to journalists not directly involved in the market.

2006年，英國央行官員和一些高級外匯交易員召開會議討論了外匯市場的操縱問題。這場討論的發生讓人懷疑“老太太”（Old Lady，這裏指英國央行，譯者注）知道了什麼。英國央行展開了獨立調查，並得出結論稱，其官員都不清楚市場操縱問題。儘管英國央行有着往好的方面解釋自身行爲的悠久歷史——從銀行監管委員會(Board of Banking Supervision)對1995年巴林銀行(Barings)醜聞的粉飾性調查，一直到對Libor操縱案的調查——但我們必須接受該行官員全都不知情的結論。即便這是事實，但人們有必要對他們的能力表示懷疑。畢竟，就連不直接涉足市場的記者都能發現那些不當行爲。

Market rigging, to judge from the forex affair, continued well after the banking crisis. It kept taking place even after Libor scandal broke. This raises the question whether people at all levels of the forex trading community – traders, managers, regulators and the BoE – will feel adequately chastened by the fines imposed on five banks.

從此次外匯事件判斷，市場操縱行爲在銀行業危機之後依然猖獗。甚至在Libor操縱醜聞爆發之後仍在發生。這讓人們懷疑，對5家銀行的罰款是否能對外匯交易圈子中各個級別的人（交易員、經理、監管機構和英國央行）產生足夠的懲戒作用。

Yet there are finally some signs that the banking industry has got the message. Traders have seen some colleagues marched off for questioning. Some face the threat of criminal charges. Managers are conducting the line-by-line forensic analysis of their business that should have started long ago.

然而，現在終於有一些跡象表明，銀行業已經明白過來。交易員看到一些同事被帶走詢問。一些人面臨着刑事指控。經理們正在對業務進行細緻的分析審查，他們早就該這麼做。

Senior managers in the banks are introducing programmes to change the industry’s culture. Risk and compliance departments are emboldened by the new tone from the top and are being properly intrusive. Regulators now understand that light-touch regulation is no way to run a market and are getting tough in the questions they ask and the deterrents they impose. The Bank of England has belatedly strengthened controls in its dealing area. New rules make it difficult for investment banks to carry out proprietary trading. Compensation practices have been reformed to make it harder for traders to take the money and run.

銀行高管正在推出改變銀行業文化的計劃。高層的新口吻鼓舞了風險管理和合規部門的信心和膽量，他們正在對銀行業務進行適度干預。監管機構現在明白，溫和監管絕非市場管理之道，因此開始嚴厲問責並加大威懾。英國央行姍姍來遲地收緊了對其交易領域的控制。新規讓投資銀行難以開展自營交易。薪酬制度的改革讓交易員更難拿錢跑路。

Against this background, it would be surprising if systemic misbehaviour at blue-chip financial institutions persisted but memories are short in financial markets. At the sharp end of the business, a typical career lasts only 20 years. As Christopher Fildes, a doyen of financial journalism, has remarked, moments of maximum danger arise when the last person to have experienced the previous crisis departs. There are no grounds for complacency.

在這種背景下，如果大型金融機構的系統性不當行爲仍層出不窮將令人意外，但金融市場很健忘。這一行中最尖端的職業，通常的職業生涯只有20年時間。正如金融新聞業前輩克里斯托弗•法爾茲(Christopher Fildes)所說的那樣，當經歷過先前危機的最後一人離職時，就是風險最大的時候。現在沒有自滿的理由。