Carlo Palombo will not be getting another job in financial services. The 47 year-old ex-Barclays vice president and senior trader had his criminal conviction for conspiracy defraud by manipulating the EURIBOR rate overturned last month. The UK Financial Conduct Authority subsequently revoked its ban on him working in the industry. If he wanted, Palombo could potentially try to find a new role. He doesn’t want to; he’s more interested in philosophy instead.
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Even before he was fired and accused of fraud 19 years ago, Palombo says he’d decided that working in trading wasn’t for him. “I was already leaving Barclays,” he tells us. “I wanted a break from banking. I wanted to go back to academia and study philosophy and critical theory.”
Like many in financial services, Palombo says he became a trader by default rather than design. He studied economics at university in Italy and applied to financial services jobs as a means of moving to London. “All the other graduate jobs I was looking at were based in Milan, which did not feel as exciting,” he says.