Yet another trading scandal came very close to rocking a major financial institution in the City of London recently. This time it was Bankers Trust which had a nasty shock when it discovered that blatant rogue trading was going on in its midst. The perpetrators this time were children from a London secondary school attending a Bankers Trust maths weekend at the University of Warwick.
The attempted fraud occurred during the High Street Challenge game created by Bankers' employee Sami El Khalifa. "The object of the game was for the kids to decide how much of a product they should produce, bearing in mind that a large supply meant a lower price," he says. "The game started off quite conservatively, but the kids soon realized that knowing what the competing teams were doing would give them a definite advantage." Fortunately, the young transgressors were not yet skilled in the art of subterfuge and were quickly caught by Bankers Trust compliance staff.
Does Bankers Trust have its eye on any of the youngsters for a post on its trading floor? "It's too early to say," says El Khalifa "Some of those kids were really bright, but for now we're just trying to show them how maths can be a useful, interesting tool, not just a drag."