Bank of England Confirms Human Error mis-states gilt purchases by £13bn
Four of the biggest banks in the United Kingdom were charged with misconduct and fraudulent practices based on their past history and together have to pay an estimated £19 billion before the end of 2016. Lloyds Banking Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays were all found guilty of manipulating data to further their business interests.
Now the Bank of England has gone on record to confirm that a clerical error from their side regarding the sale of government debt in the United Kingdom has been entered incorrectly to the value of £13.4 billion. The Bank of England released a “notice of errata” on the 6th of May confirming that it accidentally cut the amount of UK government debt that was purchased by foreign investors by as much as 50%.
The Bank of England revealed that amount of UK government debt purchased was halved from £28.2 billion to £14.8 billion. However, the central bank confirmed that the total amount of gilt sales for the 1st quarter remained the same and was unchanged standing at £14.6 billion.
The Bank of England released an official statement which read
Due to a clerical error occurring while inputting the February value for non-residents’ purchases of gilts, the Bank of England bankstats’ publication and statistical interactive database are being revised.
Purchases by UK monetary financial institutions and other UK private sector holders will be updated accordingly.
The United Kingdom is currently in election mode this week and voters are keeping an eye out for any information that would help them decide on which party to vote for. The figures published last week confirm that foreign investors were not paying much attention to the general election in the UK nor the fluctuation of market conditions but were focused on buying large sums of British government debt.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK has asked UK citizens to cast their vote without fail and when doing so to do it wisely, so they have no regrets in the future. The fact remains that there are now 5 UK banks that have been guilty of misrepresenting financial data during Cameron’s tenure as Prime Minister does not reflect well on his party or his leadership.
However some political and financial analysts tend to ignore such news stating that controversy and litigation against UK based banks is not abnormal but just a ‘way of life’.
