Bank of England audio feed ‘misused’ to give traders an edge

Hedge funds have had access to market-sensitive news conferences at the Bank of England a crucial few seconds earlier than the rest of the public, potentially allowing them to make big profits, The Times newspaper reported late Wednesday.

Having access to comments from the Bank of England’s governor, Mark Carney, seconds before the official broadcast feed was seen by other investors could give a big advantage to traders who use powerful computer programs to get an edge. So-called high-frequency trading can involve huge numbers of transactions executed in a fraction of a second, meaning that early access to market-moving news can yield big rewards.

If Carney, for example, indicates that the bank is ready to raise interest rates, traders could see that as a potential positive for the pound and start buying the currency before other investors watching the official broadcast provided by Bloomberg News.

Such an illegitimate use of the audio will likely raise concerns of insider trading because it would have given traders a boost based on information their rivals did not have.

Carney and others on the bank’s rate-setting panel hold quarterly press conferences to discuss the outlook for U.K. interest rates. Those press conferences often lead to big moves in U.K. financial markets as traders react to changes to the outlook for interest rates. That’s been especially the case over the past few years of Brexit-related uncertainty.

According to The Times, those who subscribed to the market news service offering the Bank’s audio had a five- to eight-second head start over competitors.

In a statement issued after The Times’ report, the central bank said it has identified that an audio feed of some of its press conferences - installed only to act as a back-up in case the video feed failed - “has been misused by a third party supplier to the Bank since earlier this year to supply services to other external clients.”

It said this “wholly unacceptable use of the audio feed was without the Bank’s knowledge or consent, and is being investigated further.”

The unnamed third party supplier’s access has been disabled and it will no longer play any part in any of the bank’s future press conferences.

The Bank of England insisted it operates “the highest standards of information security around the release of the market sensitive decisions of its policy committees” and that the issue identified “related only to the broadcast of press conferences that follow such statements.”