Barclays has settled for £290m with the Financial Services Authority in the UK, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice in the US. The fines are the result of an investigation which found that Barclays had deliberately manipulated interest rates in order to protect themselves from losses and bolster their profits in derivatives trading. Louis Brooke, spokesperson for Move Your Money UK said “This is an example of barefaced fraud which the regulators were powerless to stop. Manipulating interest rates is not a victimless crime – ordinary borrowers and savers have paid so that fact cat traders could line their pockets with multimillion-pound bonuses.

The fact that this was going on in the midst of a financial crisis caused by the bank's reckless, dishonest behavior only proves that our financial system is out of control. In a rigged market, with clueless regulators and gutless politicians the only way to hold the big banks to account is to use our consumer power and move our money.

Ordinary mortals might be facing prosecution, yet Bob Diamond and his cronies have only made the token gesture of waiving their bonuses. it again seems to be one rule for us and another for them.”

If Barclay's have been up to it, then you can bet that the other banks aren't far behind, indeed we are anticipating similar fines for RBS and the other big banks. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is endemic corruption, built into the very fabric of the banking system.

But what's so shocking about this latest scandal is that it so clearly undermines the mechanisms on which the financial markets rely to be able to function. It is kamikaze greed.

That's why moving your money out of the big banks is so important, these institutions are so far gone, their cultures, practices and procedures so tainted that we urgently need to build an alternative.

In the UK we have a strong mutual sector in the form of the building societies, the Co-op and an ever-growing credit union movement, as well as a number of mission-driven banks. These offer real alternatives to the big banks. We cannot afford to let the big banks run amok with our economy and our money again. If you haven't already then its time to Move Your Money. You can't afford not to.