Going Rogue: Big Banks, Murky Finance, and Reckless Trading
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
It wasn’t a hostile takeover or a run on the bank that destroyed Barings, one of Britain’s most solid financial institutions. All it took was Nick Leeson, a 20-something trader operating in Singapore, to burn through more than a billion dollars and bring the company down. Of course, that was in 1995. Today, with increased regulations and super-sophisticated monitoring systems, Leeson’s transgressions would never be allowed to happen. Right? Wrong—as recently as the fall of 2011, a rogue trader was nabbed for gambling away $2.3 billion at the giant European bank UBS. This program shows how such egregious offenses continue to plague the global financial system, thanks to a pervasive culture of greed, risk addiction, and criminality. Interviews with Leeson and other industry insiders clearly illustrate the institutional problems while a trader-turned-neuroscientist discusses the psychology behind out-of-control investing. (26 minutes)