TIME STAMPING OF EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS

Early day motion 204, tabled 14 June 2012 by Austin Mitchell (Labour). Signed by 21 members.

That this House is concerned at the opportunities for greed and self-enrichment available in financial institutions; points out that young dealers have for too long been conditioned to put their own individual interests and those of their financial institution ahead of the interests of clients on whose behalf they are dealing; notes that they can do this by skimming off points on trades made on behalf of clients by quoting the worst rates of the day to the clients while in fact trading at the best and appropriating the difference for themselves; urges the Government and the Bank of England to stop this potential for virtually undectable theft by requiring time stamping of all customer foreign exchange transactions, thus providing an audit trail which allows clients to know the actual market price at the time of the trade and stopping unscrupulous dealers claiming that it was done at another time more profitable to themselves; further notes that the current Bank of New York Mellon lawsuit in the US, in which public service pension funds are claiming two billion dollars in restitution for funds skimmed off by this failure to time stamp transactions, demonstrates the scale of this practice in the US which indicates that it must be going on in British markets which are even less regulated; and urges that this practice must be stopped to maintain the integrity of the system.

Signatures by party: Labour 17, Liberal Democrat 2, Plaid Cymru 1, Respect 1.