People walk past a branch of Barclays Bank in London …

Photo by Associated Press | published: December 5, 2013

People walk past a branch of Barclays Bank in London on Wednesday. The European Commission has fined a group of major global banks, including Barclays, a total of $2.3 billion for colluding to profit from the interest-rates market. The banks are accused of manipulating for years European and Japanese benchmark interest rates that affect hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts globally, from mortgages to credit card bills.