The US' Commodity Futures Trading Commission has handed Royal Bank of Scotland, the taxpayer-owned UK lender, an $85 million penalty for trying to manipulate a widely-used interest-rate benchmark.

In a statement on February 3, the CFTC said that RBS had, "through the actions of multiple traders" in Stamford, Connecticut, "engaged in unlawful conduct in order to benefit certain derivatives positions it held that were priced or valued off of the USD ISDAFIX benchmark" between 2007 and 2012.