U.K. Bank FX-Rigging Fine Dwarfed by PPI Mis-Selling Bill

As the cost for rigging currency markets keeps rising, British banks can take cold comfort the costs are dwarfed by wrongfully sold insurance.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc today agreed to pay a combined $1.3 billion to regulators to settle a probe into the manipulation of foreign-exchange benchmarks. Even with Barclays Plc, which has delayed its settlement, setting aside 500 million pounds ($792 million) in the third quarter to cover a fine, that’s still just a fraction of the 22 billion pounds in costs for wrongly sold payment-protection insurance to retail customers in the U.K.