Britain's Perfect Storm of Bank Scandals

As the chairman of Barclays resigns in the wake of an interest-rate fixing scandal, the city of London is in crisis and Prime Minister David Cameron has announced an urgent Parliamentary inquiry.

“It’s a turning point,” said Martin Vander Weyer, a former director of the investment arm of the British bank, now known as Barclays Capital. “Three scandals have come in Britain in a perfect storm last week.” The NatWest online bank didn’t work for 10 days because of a software problem. Meanwhile, Barclays was caught mis-selling complex interest-rate insurance to small companies and, more important, a LIBOR scandal has emerged.