AKIPRESS.COM - U.S. and British authorities fined Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) $2.5 billion, accused Germany's largest lender of obstructing regulators and ordered it to fire seven employees in the eighth global settlement of alleged benchmark interest rate rigging.

The penalty - the biggest in a seven-year investigation that has shredded the banking industry's reputation - takes the total fines imposed on some of the world's top financial institutions to around $8.5 billion. Twenty-one people face criminal charges.

Slamming Germany's largest lender for "cultural failings", regulators squarely blamed senior staff for misleading them, failing to be open and cooperative, and prolonging the investigation.

U.S. regulators fined Deutsche Bank $2.12 billion and UK watchdogs imposed a $340 million penalty for its role in a scam that ran from around 2003 to 2010 to fix rates such as the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) - used to price hundreds of trillions of dollars of loans and contracts worldwide.

As part of the settlement, Deutsche Bank's London-based subsidiary pleaded guilty to criminal wire fraud and the parent group entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to settle U.S. wire fraud and antitrust charges. U.S. authorities said independent monitors would be installed, reports Reuters.