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On the hook: Chief Operating Officer Jerry Del Missier, left, CEO Rich Ricci, centre, and Finance Director Chris Lucas, right have all agreed not to take a bonus this year along with Mr Diamond

Yesterday Mr Diamond and three of his fellow executives – Rich Ricci, Jerry del Missier and Chris Lucas – admitted their role in the scandal.

Mr Diamond, who yesterday faced calls to resign, said they will not take a penny in bonus this year ‘to reflect our collective responsibility as leaders’.

It caps an extraordinarily humiliating time for Barclays, whose controversial chief executive was once dubbed ‘the unacceptable face of banking’. Last year, his pay package was worth around 18million.

HOW BARCLAYS TRADERS CONSPIRED TO FIX THE MARKETS

Between 2005 and 2009, more than 200 requests were sent, usually by email or instant messenger - by traders to the Barclays Libor submitters.

In one example of several provided by the FSA, a trader emailed the Barclays Libor submitter in March 2006, writing: 'The big day [has] arrived… My NYK are screaming at me about an unchanged 3(month) libor. As always, any help wd be greatly appreciated. What do you think you’ll go for 3(month)?'

The submitter replied: 'I am going 90 altho 91 is what I should be posting.'

The trader thanked him, saying: '..when I retire and write a book about this business your name will be written in golden letters.'

The submitter then replied: 'I would prefer this [to] not be in any book!'

In another example from April 2006, a trader requested low one month and three month US dollar Libor rates shortly before the submission was due.

He asked: 'If it’s not too late low 1m and 3m would be nice, but please feel free to say “no”... Coffees will be coming your way either way, just to say thank you for your help in the past few weeks.'

The submitter replied: 'Done... for you big boy.'

In January last year, it was found guilty of enticing elderly customers to gamble their life savings on the stock market. Around 12,000 loyal customers lost half their savings.

Some were left more than 110,000 out of pocket. In February this year, it was found guilty of a ruthless tax avoidance plot to rob taxpayers of around 500million.

In April, its bills for the compensation to victims of the mis-selling of payment protection insurance jumped by 300million to 1.3billion.

Yesterday FSA said it had fined Barclays 59.5million, the largest fine that it has ever handed out in its history. The rest of the 290million was levied by American authorities.

Tracey McDermott, acting director of enforcement and financial crime at the FSA, said: ‘Barclays’ misconduct was serious, widespread and extended over a number of years.’

She slammed the bank’s bad behaviour, which began in 2005 and continued until 2010, as ‘wholly unacceptable’.

Up to 20 traders have been fired recently by Barclays, including some who were kicked out yesterday, and are likely to face calls to pay back the bonuses scooped in previous years.

The FSA said it was pursing ‘a number of other significant cross-border investigations’, with further announcements expected over the next few months.

At around noon every day, the Libor rate is published by the British Bankers’ Association, based on rates submitted by dozens of banks, including Barclays.

Each bank has staff working as ‘submitters’ who file their daily Libor rates – and it is these submitters who were being told by traders and even senior managers to file a false figure.

The figure they should file is the rate at which the bank thinks it can borrow money that day. The rate they actually filed was the rate which suited their trades and the bank’s image.

For example, some traders would try to fiddle the Libor rate filed by the submitters to maximise the profits from the complex trades they were making.

In the shocking ‘Bollinger’ email, for example, the trader wrote: ‘If it [Libor] comes in unchanged, I’m a dead man.’ Another email was: ‘We’re all rooting for a high Libor tomorrow.’

The Libor rate is set in the City (pictured) each day and is a benchmark for the cost of borrowing and is included in millions of financial contracts all around the world

During the credit crunch in 2007, the FSA said senior managers at Barclays put pressure on the submitters to file low Libor rates to make the bank look stronger than it was.

The credit crunch began in August 2007. From September, the FSA said: ‘Barclays determined its Libor submissions whilst taking senior management’s concerns about negative media comment into account.’

One submitter wrote in an email that the bank would try to file the same Libor rates as other banks ‘or else the rumours will start flying about Barclays needing money because its Libors are so high’.

Lord Oakeshott, the Lib Dem peer, said: ‘The whole City knew Barclays Capital under Bob Diamond was a casino, but not that they were rigging the wheels and loading the dice.

‘This does terrible damage to Barclays’ own reputation, the integrity of the City of London and many people’s waning trust in capitalism and free markets. If he had a scintilla of shame, he would resign.’

Labour MP George Mudie, who sits on the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘It is a major scandal and it is a scandal that affects the integrity of the financial system.’

Yesterday the British Bankers’ Association said it began an investigation into the way Libor is calculated in March.

Barclays chairman Marcus Agius said: ‘The board takes the issues underlying the announcement extremely seriously and views them with the utmost regret.’

ANALYSIS by ALEX BRUMMER

Not a good corporate citizen... Mr Diamond took to the airwaves last year claiming that he wanted to be one however

Another day and another monumental banking scandal is revealed, this time at Barclays, the lender run by Bob Diamond, who took to the airwaves this year claiming he wanted to be a good corporate citizen.

Diamond’s remarks, at a time when the bank was under investigation on both sides of the Atlantic for manipulating interest rates, look to be humbug of the worst kind.

Under pressure from regulators in the City and Washington, Barclays has confessed to reprehensible behaviour and paid a whopping fine of 290million.

Its senior staff, including Diamond, chief operating officer Jerry del Missier and head of investment banking Rich Ricci, have all agreed to give up their annual bonuses for 2012.

The tarnish on the reputations of Barclays’ top brass will not go away and there may be questions as to whether they can survive this latest outrage.

The disclosures come in a bad week for the high street banks. The systems meltdown at the Royal Bank of Scotland has caused untold anguish to millions of ordinary households and businesses.

Meanwhile, the banks – including Barclays – are to be investigated by the City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, for mis-selling complex loans to tens of thousands of businesses up and down the country, sending some firms to the wall when the interest rate on the advances unexpectedly soared.

The Barclays wrongdoing focuses on the British and European wholesale money markets, where banks and large corporations lend to each other.

Barclays traders contrived to rig the interest rates in these markets – known as the London Interbank Rate (Libor) and the European Interbank Rate (Euribor) – by making sophisticated bets to make trading gains. It is understood that between ten and 20 rogue dealers were involved, all of whom are being or have been dismissed.

Barclays may be the first of the banks to acknowledge their culpability in seeking to fix and manipulate interest rates, but it will not be alone. It is expected other banks including RBS, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan are among a long list of lenders in discussion with the regulator over their roles in seeking to influence the market interest rate.

What is perhaps most damaging to Barclays is the ‘barrow boy’ style language used by the traders at the centre of the trade, with dealers calling each other ‘dude’ and ‘chicken’ and promising bottles of Bollinger for being let in on the scam.

The disclosures, which date back several years, serve only to underline the view that investment banks are no more than casinos gambling other people’s money.

The most intriguing aspect of the market manipulation was that which took place at the height of the great financial panic in 2007-08. Barclays executives were panicked by market and media speculation that the bank was in trouble because it was bidding a higher interest rate than other banks to borrow cash in the money markets.

An instruction went out to lower the bids and make the bank look safer than it might otherwise appear. Paradoxically, this may have led to customers, such as big companies, being able to borrow at cheaper rates than otherwise would have been the case.

The latest disgrace for Barclays and the whole financial system can only increase the deep distrust of the public in the integrity of the City and the bankers.

Many will wonder why nearly five years after the financial crisis there has never been a full Leveson-style judicial inquiry into their behaviour, holding those who brought the economy crashing down responsible for their actions.