Banks fined $549 million for hiding messages in iMessage and Signal
Wells Fargo will pay the biggest fine in recent US regulatory enforcement actions. | Photo illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Several US financial firms, including multiple Wells Fargo companies, will pay a combined $549 million in fines after admitting they couldn’t produce discussions about company business from smartphone messaging apps used by their employees, “including those at senior levels.”
Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined banks for being unable to produce discussions going back to at least 2019. The regulators say employees used their personal devices to discuss official company business via apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal and that those “off-channel communications” weren’t “maintained or preserved.”
Not keeping records of those conversations violates the 1934…
