Citigroup Global Markets Limited (CGML) has been slapped with a combined fine of £61.6 million by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The hefty penalty comes in the wake of a trading system failure that saw the firm inadvertently sell $1.4 billion worth of equities across European exchanges.
Citigroup Fined £61.6 Million for Algorithmic Trading Blunder
The incident, which occurred on 2 May 2022, was triggered by a trader's inputting error while creating a basket of equities in an order management system. The intended value of the basket was a mere $58 million, but the mistake resulted in the creation of a basket worth $444 billion.
While CGML's controls managed to block $255 billion of the erroneous basket, the remaining $189 billion slipped through the cracks and was sent to a trading algorithm. The algorithm, designed to sell portions of the total order throughout the day, proceeded to execute trades worth $1.4 billion before the trader realized the error and canceled the order.
The massive sell-off coincided with a significant short-term drop in several European indices, causing market disruption that lasted for several minutes.
“These failings led to over a billion pounds of erroneous orders being executed and risked creating a disorderly market,” commented Steve Smart, Joint Executive Director ff Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA. “We expect firms to look at their own controls and ensure that they are appropriate given the speed and complexity of financial markets.”
This is not the first penalty that Citigroup's brokerage subsidiary has received from British regulators. Almost two years ago, the FCA imposed a £12.6 million penalty on the institution for failing to detect market abuse. Last year, the US SEC also penalized the firm for recordkeeping failures.
Controls Deficiencies
The FCA's investigation revealed some deficiencies in CGML's trading control framework. The absence of a hard block to reject the entire erroneous basket and prevent it from reaching the market was a critical oversight.
Furthermore, the trader was able to manually override a pop-up alert without being required to read all the alerts within it, highlighting poor design in the firm's risk management systems.
“The FCA expects firms engaged in trading activities, including those using algorithmic trading, to have effective systems and controls in place to stop errors like this occurring,” added Smart.
CGML's cooperation with the FCA's investigation and settlement agreement resulted in a 30% discount on the financial penalty. Without this discount, the FCA would have imposed a penalty of £39.7 million. The PRA also conducted its own investigation into related matters and imposed an additional fine of £33.9 million on CGML.
Over a year ago, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) imposed an intermediary penalty on the Asian branch of Citigroup Global Markets. The SFC banned Philip John Shaw, who previously served as a responsible officer, board member, and Head of Pan-Asia Execution Services at the company. According to the regulator’s statement, Shaw is prohibited from re-entering the financial industry for the next ten years until 3 March 2033.
