Barclays has announced that its chief executive Bob Diamond has quit with immediate effect following a market-rigging scandal.
Outgoing chairman Marcus Agius, who announced his resignation yesterday, will become full-time chairman and lead the search for a new chief executive.
"The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise - I cannot let that happen," Mr Diamond said in a statement.
He told staff yesterday he was sorry for the the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) fixing scandal that has plagued his bank and caused Mr Agius to stand down. He added that he was angry about the scandal and said would fight to show the bank's employees and the outside world the scandal was not representative of the culture of Barclays and that the bank would fire individuals found to have failed to maintain its standards.
Barclays, he continued, was not the only bank to have acted in the way revealed by the regulators – although so far it alone has been punished.
Barclays was fined a record £290 million (€362 million) by British and US regulators after admitting its traders had sought to manipulate the rates which underpin $350 trillion (€278 trillion) of contracts around the world.
Mr Diamond (60) will step down with immediate effect. He became chief executive of Barclays on January 1st of last year after joining the bank in 1996.
British chancellor George Osborne welcomed the resignation of Mr Diamond, saying he hoped it was the first step in a new culture of responsible British banking.
"I think it's the right decision for Barclays, I think it's the right decision for the country because we need Barclays bank focussed on lending to our economy and not distracted by this argument about who should be in charge," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio.
Plans to establish a parliamentary inquiry into the rate-fixing scandal were announced yesterday by British prime minister David Cameron. "This committee will be able to take evidence under oath, it will have full access to papers and officials and ministers including ministers and special advisers from the last government," he said.
Reuters
