Deutsche was fined $2.5 billion by British and U.S. authorities and its UK subsidiary admitted criminal wire fraud on Thursday for manipulating interest rate benchmarks used to price trillions of dollars worth of global securities.

While other banks have already been implicated in rate rigging - including Britain's Barclays, Lloyds and RBS, Switzerland's UBS and the Dutch lender Rabobank - Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said Deutsche was the first that was also fined for lying about it.

Deutsche stood out for the scale of the manipulation, the number of staff involved and for its lack of honesty and openness once the wrongdoing was under investigation, the FCA said.

According to the FCA, at least 29 employees in London, New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo, ranking from derivatives traders up to a London-based managing director, were involved in the rate rigging between 2005 and 2010.

Casual messages traders sent to colleagues at the bank responsible for submitting its interest rates to be compiled into the benchmarks showed that manipulating markets had become entirely routine, the regulator said.

"Could we pls have a low 6mth fix today old bean?" a trader asked a Deutsche submitter, according to the FCA.

"Could I beg you for a low 3m (Euribor) fixing today please... that would be the best xmas present ;)," a manager at the bank asked a Deutsche submitter.

"Be a pleasure, no probs," was the response.

Deutsche staff sent messages asking for similar favors from rate submitters at rival banks.

"I seriously need your help tomorrow on the 1mth fix," a manager at Deutsche told a trader at another bank, the FCA said.

The London Interbank Offered Rate or Libor, and its variants such as Euribor, are widely used to help price home loans and other financial products. They are compiled from rates submitted by banks themselves, which made them open to manipulation.

The FCA said Deutsche staff sought to make a profit or reduce losses on derivatives trading positions by influencing the quotes it and other banks were making to compilers of the daily Libor and Euribor "fixes".

Of the 227 million pounds in fines that were levied by Britain's FCA, 101 million pounds was for failing to be open and honest with the regulator, an element unseen in previous Libor settlements.

"Deutsche Bank provided the FCA with a false attestation that stated that its systems and controls in relation to LIBOR were adequate. It was known to be false by the person who drafted it," the FCA said.

In another instance, the British Bankers Association, which compiled the rates, asked banks to confirm they had completed an audit of controls in place to stop rigging.

A compliance officer at Deutsche signed and submitted confirmation stating an audit had been completed but this was false, the FCA said. In email correspondence from the compliance officer, the confirmation was referred to as "an arse-covering exercise [by the BBA]."

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Peter Graff)

By Huw Jones