South Africa's Standard Bank in talks with watchdog in rand-rigging probe

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Standard Bank is engaging with the Competition Commission over the watchdog's investigation into alleged rigging of rand currency trading and has not suspended any employees to date, the bank said on Thursday.

The Commission said last week that it had found more than a dozen local and foreign banks had colluded to coordinate trading in the rand and the U.S dollar using an instant chat room called ZAR Domination.

It recommended fines amounting to 10 percent of the banks' South African revenues in a scandal that has piled political pressure on the country's big four banks and raised questions about their dominance in Africa's most industrialised economy.

"Pending the outcome of these engagements and in the light of these historic allegations only having been brought to Standard Bank's attention on Feb. 15, no suspension of current employees of Standard Bank has taken place," it said in a statement.

The Commission has granted Barclays Africa conditional immunity from prosecution in return for its continuing cooperation, the watchdog said this week, a day after the local arm of Citigroup agreed to pay a reduced $5 million penalty for cooperating in the investigation.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said in his budget speech on Wednesday that the government would crack down on anti-competitive behaviour with new regulation.

The scandal has weakened the share prices of South Africa's listed banks. The sector index dropped by about 1 percent by mid-session on Thursday.

(Reporting by TJ Strydom; Writing by James Macharia; Editing by David Goodman)