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One of the UK’s highest paid chief executives, earning £20 million last year; Barclays chief executive Robert Diamond resigned Tuesday, amid a scandal that has rocked Barclays, involving efforts to manipulate a key interest rate.

Diamond resigned a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates.

Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked “damaging the franchise”, reported the BBC in an article Tuesday.

Chief operating officer Jerry del Missier has also resigned, the third top executive in two days to do so, according to the article. Chairman Marcus Agius, who announced his resignation on Monday, will take over the reins until a new chief executive is appointed.

The resignations come after Barclays, one of the world’s largest banks, was fined $450 million by British and U.S. regulators after admitting that it purposely under-reported its interest rates as part of LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate).

“The cynical greed of traders asking their colleagues to falsify their Libor submissions so that they could make bigger profits – has justifiably shocked and angered people, in particular when we are facing hard economic times provoked by the financial crisis,” said Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, at the Financial Services Authority’s annual meeting.