selected
Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London, was declared insolvent after its head derivatives trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million while making unauthorised trades on futures contracts.
Related Wikipedia articles
Barings Bank
Defunct English merchant bank
Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London. It was one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German–British Baring…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Merchant bank
Deals in commercial loans and investment
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage, it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Derivative (finance)
Type of financial contract
In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements:an item that can or must be bought or sold, a future act which must occur, a price at…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Nick Leeson
English former derivatives trader (born 1967)
Nicholas William Leeson is an English former derivatives trader whose fraudulent, unauthorised and speculative trades resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom's oldest existing merchant bank. He was convicted of financial crime in a Singapore court and…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Rogue trader
Professional trader who makes unapproved financial transactions
In financial trading, a rogue trader is an employee authorized to make trades on behalf of their employer who makes unauthorized trades. It can also involve mismarking of securities. The perpetrator is a legitimate employee of a company, but enters into transactions on behalf of…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Futures contract
Financial contract
In finance, a futures contract is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The item transacted is usually a commodity or financial instrument. The…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)