A Bit Of Market Gossip

The Financial Times reports that the City of London Police have charged Jagmeet Channa, a 25-year-old HSBC Corporate Trust employee, with conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and abusing his position of trust.

The newspaper quotes unnamed 'people familiar with the matter', who claim that the bank discovered last month that an employee had transferred around $141m from a client account without authorization. Three other individuals are believed to have been interviewed by the police.

Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Bank is now introducing a global policy which will mean that employees in 'sensitive' roles will be required to take off at least 10 consecutive working days holiday each year. The bank is said to have told staff in a memo that the policy is 'designed as an important internal control to safeguard the perpetuation of fraud'. At present, the 10 day rule is thought to be restricted to trading staff.

FT Alphaville reminded us that Paul Idzik, Barclays' outgoing COO, is quite a colourful character. A couple of years back he is said to have vaulted over the security barriers at the bank's premises in Churchill Place and became angry when no-one came running after him. He calmed down when it was pointed that he wasn't considered a terrorist or security risk, and therefore wasn't challenged. Idzik is also said to have often taken badly dressed staff to task, once cutting an employee's tie with a pair of scissors. Idzik did, however, replace the tie with a more expensive alternative.

Finally, The Daily Telegraph points that that UBS analyst Andreas Hoefert has revealed that, after 'extensive calculations', the Czech Republic is likely to walk off as European Champions this summer. Before you take the micky, however, Hoefert was the man who correctly predicted that Italy would win the World Cup in 2006.

Press here to comment on this story >>

Today in Life: Redundancy? Time to Ditch the B.tch >>

TODAY

• Layoffs - The Definitive Job Loss League Table
• Citi To Merge
• 40,000 Job Losses At Merrill Lynch - Not!

THIS WEEK

• Another Classic Resignation E-Mail
• A Nasty Business - An Open Letter From A Back Office Professional
• Geriatric Bun-Fight - Feud At Top Firm