THE European Commission has raided banks, including Deutsche Bank, in a probe into suspected fixing of interbank lending benchmark Euribor, the third major probe of the finance sector by the European Union's executive this year.

The EU's executive, which has powers to impose heavy fines if it finds wrongdoing, said it had carried out the searches on concerns that the companies involved may have broken antitrust rules.

It is the third major probe into banking this year after separate investigations into credit default swaps, including a probe into whether banks manipulated another interbank lending benchmark, the London interbank offered rate, as well as one into cross-border bank payments.

Euribor is a key rate that banks refer to when fixing a price on interbank euro loans.

Source:shanghaidaily