Barclays bank chairman Marcus Agius to resign

Marcus Agius is to resign as the chairman of Barclays, the BBC has learned.



There will be an announcement on Monday morning, BBC business editor Robert Peston says.

It comes after Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

Earlier, it emerged The Royal Bank of Scotland had sacked four traders over their alleged involvement in the Libor-fixing scandal.

Our correspondent said this had happened earlier in the year.

Barclays was fined after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) found its traders had lied about the interest rate other banks were charging it for loans.

Giving a lower reading than the true rate would give the impression other banks thought it was a better risk to lend to than it was.

Libor (London Inter Bank Offered Rate) is the rate at which banks in London lend money to each other.

Our correspondent said there was a feeling Mr Agius was "perhaps a little close" to Barclay's boss Bob Diamond and therefore a "tougher, rather more independent" chairman needed to be appointed.

Mr Diamond has insisted he will not resign over the scandal.

He is due to appear before the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday, with Mr Agius set to follow on Thursday.

In a letter to the committee last week, Mr Diamond condemned the inappropriate behaviour of a "small number" of employees who had tried to make profits for their own benefit.

In his open letter to Andrew Tyrie MP, the chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, Mr Diamond pointed out that authorities found no evidence that knowledge of the manipulation, for which it has been fined £290m, went any higher than "immediate desk supervisors".