Two former traders have received prison sentences after making "six-figure" profits through deception, the Singapore High Court said.

A Singapore court earlier this week handed jail sentences to two former Deutsche Bank and HSBC currency traders for cheating the banks by making bogus trades.

Former HSBC senior dealer Ivan Chng was sentenced to 15 weeks’ imprisonment, the Singapore High Court said this week. Ex-Deutsche Bank trader Toh Khuan was given an eight-week sentence. Neither man was fined.

Justice See Oon, who oversaw proceedings, reportedly said the men were motivated by self interest and gained a trading advantage. While the banks’ losses could not be precisely calculated, the trades represented an opportunity cost to the banks, he reportedly said.

The men made “substantial six-figure” profits through deception, See reportedly said. As the trades were executed within the market spread, there was no discernible impact on the market, See reportedly added.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

WealthBriefing Asia has contacted HSBC for comment and will update coverage accordingly.

Singapore is tightening its grip on the financial services industry. Earlier this month, the city-state’s regulator announced its plans for a new data analytics unit to ramp up supervision.

Chng and Toh were convicted in January of using their banks’ accounts in 2009 to receive preferential rates on the dollar.

The former traders were charged in 2015. Chng faced 149 counts of buying and selling around $800 million and illicitly making about S$230,000 ($162,000). Toh had 39 counts of buying and selling more than $250 million and unlawfully pocketing approximately S$140,000.

Prosecutors initially sought a three-month jail term for Toh and six months for Chng. Both men failed to disclose their beneficial ownership in the trades, and their offences were difficult to detect, prosecutors had reportedly said.

The pair’s lawyers had urged the court to impose fines rather than prison sentences. Toh’s lawyer, Lee Leng, said Deutsche Bank did not suffer actual losses and there was no market impact from his trades. Toh has been unemployed since being fired from the bank in 2010.

Chng was fired from HSBC and reportedly had to work as an Uber driver.

Probes into the rigging of foreign exchange markets and interest rate benchmarks have resulted in lenders shelling out billions of dollars in fines.

Ealier this week, New York-headquartered Citigroup agreed to pay a penalty of almost $5.4 million to settle a South African probe that alleged it took part in a cartel that manipulated the value of the rand.

For Deutsche Bank, the jail sentence handed to one of its former traders follows a long list of legal and regulatory woes for the bank. To read this publication's most recent coverage of Deutsche Bank’s litigation headaches, click here.