UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest lender, is close to agreementswith regulators to pay more than 290 million pounds ($465 million)to settle allegations traders tried to rig global interest rates, aperson with knowledge of the talks said.

An announcement may come as soon as next week, said the person,who declined to be identified because the talks are private. Morethan 25 people have already left UBS after the lender's owninternal probe, another person said last month.

Global authorities are investigating claims that more than adozen banks altered submissions used to set benchmark such as theLondon interbank offered rate to profit from bets on interest-ratederivatives or make the lenders' finances appear healthier. UBS'sis fine is likely to surpass the 290 million pounds Barclays Plc,the U.K.'s second-biggest bank, paid in June to settle claims itattempted to manipulate Libor.

“UBS has been cooperating fully with the regulatory andenforcement authorities in connection with Libor investigations,”Mark Panday, a Hong Kong-based spokesman at the Zurich-basedlender, said in an e-mail. “As we are in the midst of discussionswith those authorities, we cannot comment further.”

Regulators are focusing on whether UBS traders colluded withother banks to influence rates in an effort to increase profit, theperson said. U.S. authorities want to seal a deal with theZurich-based bank by the end of the month, though the discussionscould continue into next year or break down, according to theNew York Times, which reported the discussions earliertoday citing unidentified officials.

Steve Adamske, a spokesman for the Commodity Futures TradingCommission, and officials at the U.K. Financial Services Authoritydeclined to comment on the Times report. The U.S. JusticeDepartment declined to comment, the newspaper said.

U.K. prosecutors are poised to arrest former traders and ratesetters at UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Barclays forquestioning over their role in the Libor scandal, a person withknowledge of the probe said last month.

Libor, a benchmark for more than $300 trillion of financialproducts worldwide, is derived from a survey of banks conductedeach day on behalf of the British Bankers' Association in London.The rates help determine borrowing costs for everything frommortgages to student loans.

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