A series of banks in the United States has reached a settlement with regulators over unregulated communications from staff members through services such as WhatsApp.
The sixteen financial institutions together cost 1.1 billion dollars.
These include Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities. According to the US stock watchdog SEC, they each pay $125 million to settle the case.
Financial institutions must monitor and keep track of their staff’s work-related communications to detect irregularities. Because messages via WhatsApp, among other things, are encrypted, and banks cannot archive them, American regulators consider their use for professional activities as a violation of the rules.
The practice got a boost when working from home became the norm during the corona pandemic. At the end of last year, JPMorgan was already fined 200 million euros for the same reason.
