Bear Stearns, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley have been ordered to pay fines amounting to over $15m (€12.6m) after being found guilty by the National Association of Securities Dealers, the US watchdog, of engaging in improper initial public offering allocation practices.

The NASD found the banks broke rules when they received unusually high commissions from some customers on certain trades within one day of allocating shares in hot IPOs to those customers.