Geithner: I did all I could to address rate-rigging

LIVE VIDEO ? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies before the House Committee on Financial Services.

By NBC News and wire services

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, under pressure for allegedly not doing enough to stop fraudulent manipulation of a key benchmark interest rate, told lawmakers Wednesday he alerted the appropriate authorities ?early on.?

Geithner said he became aware of the problem in 2008, when he was president of the New York Federal Reserve, an influential bank regulator. That contradicts a statement from the New York Fed saying the institution knew about problems with the LIBOR rate as early as 2007.

?At that time, this is in the spring of 2008, we took a very careful look at these concerns, we thought those concerns were justified,? Geithner said. ?And we took the initiative to bring those concerns to the attention of the broader U.S. regulatory community, including all the agencies that have responsibility for market manipulation and abuse.?

The LIBOR rate, which is fixed via a poll of banks by?the British Bankers? Association, an industry group in London, is the benchmark for setting payments on some $360 trillion worth of financial instruments, ranging from credit cards to more complex derivatives, such as futures contracts.

Last month, U.K. bank Barclays paid?a $453 million?fine?to U.S. and U.K. authorities after admitting to giving false information as part of setting the interest rate.?Dozens of big banks such as JPMorgan Chase are now under investigation.

Geithner has repeatedly defended his actions regarding the rate, saying that he told the British authorities, who oversee the British Bankers' Association, as soon as he was aware of the problems with LIBOR. He said he?sent an email to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in June 2008 with recommendations for dealing with it.

Last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers the process for setting the rate was structurally flawed and said reforms were in the hands of the private UK banking group responsible for LIBOR.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/25/12948515-geithner-i-did-all-i-could-to-address-rate-rigging?lite

banana republic apple store academy barnes and noble nook 12 days of christmas a christmas carol arkansas football player dies