So, unlike my prediction of just yesterday, the Diamond geezer has gone.
Like a revolving door Marcus Agius, the Chair of Barclays Bank, resigned on Monday.
Now, two days later, Bob Diamond has resigned and Agius is back.
What is going on?
Well, first there has been a massive public and political backlash against Barclays Bank over this culture of corruption, exposed through the LIBOR crisis.
Worse than this though Bob Diamond, as one of the UK’s highest paid CEOs, is seen as directly accountable for this.
He could have withstood such a backlash, as demonstrated by the Board accepting that Agius could go and Diamond could stay.
So why did Bob Diamond resign?
All the media pressure got to him?
No, he’s far more thick-skinned that that.
All the political pressure got to him?
No, same.
The Board got to him?
Has to be.
But the Board got to him after the political and media backlash.
Remember, the Board got to him after accepting that he would stay and Agius would go.
So why did the Board change their mind?
Because Bob Diamond starting threatening to spill the beans on all the skeletons in the UK Banking sector’s closet.
Specifically, yesterday, he threatened to expose the Bank of England’s role in the LIBOR scandal.
There’s the rub.
That changed all as now, it was Bob Diamond trying to save his skin potentially at the bank’s own reputation with the new lead UK regulator.
So Bob had to go.
It will be interesting to see what he says to the Treasury Select Committee tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I would stop blogging about it but this story is a critical change in the history of UK and possibly global banking, so it’s too important to ignore.
Here’s the story so far:
Barclays paying $453 million to settle Libor probe - Reuters
Key emails: how Barclays manipulated Libor - The Telegraph
Bob Diamond forgoes bonus as Barclays fined for Libor manipulation - The Telegraph
Bob Diamond: Barclays falsified Libor to protect bank during financial crisis - The Telegraph
Banking crisis: why Bob Diamond is not the only one to blame - The Telegraph
Letter from Barclays chief Bob Diamond to Andrew Tyrie - The Telegraph
Barclays rate fixing scandal: Bob Diamond's letter to staff - The Telegraph
SFO in talks with City regulator over Barclays - Osborne - The Telegraph
Chairman of Barclays 'set to quit' over Libor rate-fixing scandal - The Independent
The case against Diamond’s departure - Financial Times
Barclays scandal: Bob Diamond resigns - as it happened - The Telegraph
Oliver Wright: So, now that Bob Diamond has resigned, what next for Barclays and the banking sector in general? - The Independent
The Libor Conspiracy: were the Bank of England and Whitehall in on it? - The Independent
'Fred Goodwin Law' is mooted to ban disgraced bankers for life - The Independent
The City of London is tearing itself apart and we'll all be the losers - The Telegraph
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
