Berlin (AFP) – Deutsche Bank wants to cooperate with European investigators probing the manipulation of interbank interest rates to limit damage to its reputation and bottom line, a newspaper said Sunday.
Germany’s biggest bank has asked the European Commission and Swiss authorities to give it the status of cooperating witness in their investigation of the rigging of the Libor interbank rate, now at the centre of a global financial scandal, Der Spiegel reported.
“Anxiety currently reigns within Deutsche Bank,” a source close to the bank told the German weekly.
Deutsche Bank is one of some 20 banks accused of manipulating the key lending rate by lying in their input for the Libor, which underpins rates on a wide range of lending from mortgages to credit cards.
British bank Barclays has already been fined £290 million (360 million euros, $450 million) as part of a probe into the scandal by British and US authorities.
The European Commission has already granted Barclays and Swiss bank UBS the status of cooperating witnesses, Der Spiegel reported, saying the Commission had decided to grant total immunity to the first bank to cooperate and lighter penalties for two other banks if they assisted in the probe.
