Barclays bankers are furious about their scandal too.
"It made us look like crooks and fools," a senior Barclays executive told CNBC's NetNet blog on Tuesday, referring to the Barclays Libor-rigging scandal. "It was ridiculous that he thought he could stay on after the Libor scandal."
Some New York-based Barclays bankers were dumbfounded and ready to revolt when they read a letter written by former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond implying that he did not intend to step down in spite of the scandal, according to CNBC. The bankers were beaten to the punch by the Bank of England, which helped pressure Diamond to resign as CEO of the London-based bank on Tuesday. The bank's chairman and chief operating officer also have resigned.
Barclays agreed last week to pay more than $450 million to settle charges that it had tried to manipulate Libor, a key London-based interbank lending rate that acts as a benchmark for interest rates around the world. Some argue that Libor has an indirect effect on the interest rates of mortgages. Other major banks under investigation for allegedly fixing Libor include Bank of America, Citigroup, UBS and JPMorgan Chase.
On Tuesday, Matt O'Brien, associate editor at The Atlantic, called the Libor scandal "an existential crisis" for major banks. "If Barclays will lie about something as fundamental as Libor to profit on its trades, how can clients trust them on anything?" he asked.
Apparently, some Barclays bankers in New York asked themselves the same question.