瑞银挨的“板子”太轻

That’ll be ￡42.4m, please – or ￡30m for early settlement. The fine slapped on UBSby the Financial Services Authorityyesterday for control failures that gave rogue trader Kweku Adoboli scope to lose the bank $2.3bn is the UK regulator’s third biggest. The Swiss bank has weathered the loss, Adoboli has been jailed, heads have rolled. But what is achieved by fining his employer such a derisory amount?

罚金将是4240万英镑、或3000万英镑（如果早期和解的话），请缴纳。英国金融服务管理局(FSA)昨日对瑞银(UBS)开出的这张罚单是该机构有史以来开出金额第三高的一张。瑞银因管理不力让流氓交易员奎库·阿多博利(Kweku Adoboli)有机可乘，导致该银行损失23亿美元。这家瑞士银行承受了损失，阿德波利被投入了监狱，银行多名高管辞职。但罚瑞银这么点钱又起到了什么作用呢？

Such fines are relatively new to the UK. The FSA fined Barclaysfor rigging Libor rates; fines on others could follow. And JPMorganwas fined ￡33m for failing to segregate client assets. If the amounts look symbolic, that is often because of crazily light guidelines. The FSA can levy only up to a fifth of business revenue in the offending period. With UBS, it settled for 15 per cent in recognition of measures taken since, despite the bank’s failure to tighten controls after an ￡8m fine three years ago. By comparison, French regulators fined Société Générale only €4m for risk control failures after Jér?me Kerviel lost it almost €5bn in 2008.

开出此类罚单对英国而言是相对新鲜的做法。FSA因为巴克莱银行(Barclays)操纵伦敦银行间同业拆借利率(Libor)对其开出了罚单；随后还可能处罚其他操纵Libor的银行。摩根大通(JPMorgan)因未隔离存放客户资产被罚3300万英镑。如果这些金额看上去并不高的话，那大多是因为处罚原则太过宽松。FSA对违规者处以的罚金最多不能超过其违规期间业务收入的五分之一。在瑞银的例子里，尽管该行在3年前被罚款800万英镑后未能收紧控制，但考虑到该行在那之后采取的措施，FSA对该行处以的罚金仅为违规期间业务收入的15%。相比之下，2008年杰洛米·科维尔(Jér?me Kerviel)令兴业银行(Société Générale)损失近50亿欧元，而法国监管机构对该行风险控制不力开出的罚单仅400万欧元。

US fines are meatier. In 1996, the Securities and Exchange Commissionfined Sumitomo Corp$160m after a trader lost $2.6bn trying to corner the copper market. That is more like it. But it then fined Diageoa mere $16m last year to settle Asian bribery allegations, five times what the SEC said Diageo paid to boost sales and win tax benefits.

美国的罚款更严厉一些。1996年，日本住友(Sumitomo Corp)一名交易员试图在铜市囤货投机，导致该集团损失26亿美元，美国证监会(SEC)对该集团开出的罚单为1.60亿美元。这才象话嘛。但在那之后，美国证交会去年因帝亚吉欧集团(Diageo)在亚洲行贿的指控仅对其做出1600万美元的处罚，就与该集团达成了和解，罚金数额仅为美国证交会所称该集团行贿（行贿目的是扩大销售并赢得税收优惠）金额的5倍。

Of course, UBSshould have picked up on the performance of Adoboli’s global synthetic equities trading division, as well as the way he breached risk limits and booked fictitious trades. And investors want bankers to act responsibly. But only shareholders were hurt in this case and such botch-ups are precisely what risk capital is for. Fines are a questionable deterrent in banking.

当然，瑞银本应注意到阿德波利所在的全球合成股票交易部门的表现，以及他打破风险上限并登记虚假交易的做法。投资者也希望银行家采取负责任的行动。但在这个例子里，只有股东受害，而这种糟糕的处理方式恰恰就是风险资本所希望看到的。在银行业，罚金的威慑作用值得质疑。

At least make them big enough to give them a chance.

至少要大幅提高罚款金额，让罚款有可能起到威慑的作用。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析