UK bank NatWest has blocked its employees from using messaging service WhatsApp after confirming it is not an approved channel for conversing business matters.
Other Meta-owned messaging services like Facebook Messenger and Skype have also been banned for use as NatWest looks to avoid significant fines seen in the US over failures to comply with recordkeeping rules.
Of the “approved channels” NatWest staff have been authorised to use, the bank stated that WhatsApp was not one of them when it comes to communicating business. This has since been further enforced as the messaging service is inaccessible on work phones and other digital devices earlier this month.
A NatWest statement read: “Like many organisations, we only permit the use of approved channels for communicating about business matters, whether internally or externally.”
Because messages on platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook are encrypted, they can be deleted by the user but also kept by the user, which can cause issues if they leave an institution like a bank if a compliance case is brought against said bank.
This causes complications for banks like NatWest because as regulations heighten surrounding messaging compliance, if a case is hit against a bank they have no record of the messages as it is in the control of an employee and could be non-retrievable.
As previously mentioned, banks in the US have been the subject of significant fines due to this issue, most notably, Citi Bank, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, with total fines amounting to $2bn since 2021.
Recognising this issue across the pond, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been looking at tightening regulations surrounding financial services’ usage of messaging services.
Regulations surrounding off-channel communications on these platforms look to stamp out any misconduct regarding insider trading, for example, and wider market abuse has been considered in response.
