The Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are among seven banks hit with fines totalling £78m for interest rate rigging following a four-year investigation.

The Swiss Competition Commission, known as Comco, said a number of banks ran cartels to influence rates dating as far back as 2005.

Comco also fined JP Morgan Chase and Co, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale and Credit Suisse.

It marks the latest in a long line of bank penalties for rate-rigging scandals in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The European Commission announced fines totalling £409m for HSBC, JPMorgan and Credit Agricole last month for the part they played in conspiring to rig interest rate derivatives.

Comco said taxpayer-backed RBS and JP Morgan ran a "bilateral cartel" to influence the Swiss franc Libor benchmark rate between 2008 and 2009.

RBS avoided a penalty for that as it was given immunity for revealing the cartel, while JP Morgan was fined £26.8m

It was fined by Comco for its role in rigging other financial rates, however, and it was part of a group alongside Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan, that will pay a total of £11.4m for colluding to influence the yen Libor rate and related yen derivatives between 2007 and 2010.

RBS and Barclays were among another group of banks fined £35.8m for manipulating the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, or Euribor.

Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale also took part in this cartel between 2005 and 2008, according to Comco, but Deutsche Bank was not fined as it blew the whistle on the arrangement.

The commission said RBS was involved further - alongside Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and UBS - in fixing the price of Swiss franc interest rate derivatives in 2007.

UBS received immunity for revealing the cartel and was not fined, but the other players will have to pay £4.3m.

Interbank lending rates are used to set billions of financial trades and deals worldwide every day, including car loans and mortgages. It is also used in complex overseas financial transactions.

Comco launched its investigation in 2012 involving 16 banks and five brokers.