The foreign exchange market needs "fine tuning" rather than heavy-handed reform, the chairman of Barclays argued yesterday, as he unveiled a new compliance academy aimed at raising standards within the bank.

Sir David Walker said that while the forex market was "vulnerable to taint" it had worked well for a very long time and the focus now should be on ensuring better conduct by traders.

“There is some very intelligent, sensitive fine-tuning needed, but we should be wary of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he said.

Barclays is one of a handful of market-leading forex dealers at the centre of a global investigation by more than 15 authorities into alleged collusion and rate-rigging in the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency markets.

Last week the bank hit a fresh setback with a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney-general alleging that Barclays mislead institutional investors about the presence of high-speed traders in its dark pool electronic trading venue. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014