Barclays COO Jerry Del Missier resigns


The interest rate rigging scandal at Barclays claimed its third high-profile victim late on Tuesday when chief operative officer Jerry Del Missier resigned with immediate effect.

Earlier in the day, chief executive Bob Diamond had also quit.

The bank then said that outgoing chairman Marcus Agius—who himself announced his departure a day earlier—would lead the search for a new executive.

"The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise—I cannot let that happen," Diamond said in a statement.

Agius announced his resignation on Monday in the scandal over traders manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which is used worldwide as a benchmark for prices on about $350 trillion of financial products.

But Agius said he would stay in office as long as the search for a new chairman continued.

Barclays was fined $453 million by US and British authorities, becoming the first bank to settle in an investigation that is looking at more than a dozen others, including Citigroup, UBS and RBS.