Eight banking giants were slapped with a record £1.4 billion fine yesterday for forming cartels to rig interest rates.

The banks, including RBS, have agreed penalties with the European Commission (EC) over allegations they formed cartels to fix two key benchmark interest rates used to set the price of trillions of dollars of financial products, from mortgages to complex financial products.

But the penalties imposed by the European regulators were described by one expert to be as "pointless as those imposed on millionaire footballers for being naughty."