Risk register · entry
Q-F · FraudBarings Bank
233 years old, one rogue trader in Singapore, sold for a pound.
The fifth quadrant, where the thing was never real. The tell is that the story is too clean.
Why this room
The originating act sits in Q-F because it is a simple, deliberately concealed payoff, one man hiding losses in one account and lying about the source. It reads as a Q4 story by the end because once the position size dwarfed the bank's capital, the risk stopped being about deception and became about unbounded, fat-tailed exposure that no control or model in the building was built to detect, which is a model failure, not just a fraud.
The record
- Total concealed trading losses reached £827 million by 27 February 1995certain
- Losses rose to £927 million once all positions were closed outcertain
- Barings sold to ING for a nominal £1, which assumed all liabilitiescertain
- Barings founded in 1762 by Francis and John Baring, making it 233 years old in 1995certain
- Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake struck 17 January 1995, triggering the Nikkei 225 drop that exposed Leeson's positionscertain
- Losses were hidden in error account number 88888certain
- Barings declared insolvent on 26 February 1995certain
- Exact date ING's purchase was formally completed (26 February vs. 6 March 1995 depending on source)uncertain
- By December 1994 real losses were roughly £200 million against draft accounts showing a £102 million profitlikely
- Nick Leeson sentenced to six and a half years, served in Changi Prison, released in 1999 for good behaviour after about four years and four monthscertain
- Board of Banking Supervision inquiry report published 18 July 1995certain
Sources
The book
This entry is one of 111 in the register. The full story, and what it cost the people who lived it, is in Risky Business by Claudia Zeisberger, David Munro and Joanna Reijgersberg-Siew.
Join the waiting list