One of Britain’s biggest banks has blocked its staff from using Whatsapp, Skype and Facebook at work leading to questions over whether other firms will soon follow suit.
NatWest has taken action in an effort to stick to rules over workers’ use of unauthorised electric messaging as well as avoid hefty fines.
It comes after the issue reached boiling point three years ago when two American financial regulators began fining firms over record-keeping rules being breached as company staff were sending messages that could not be recovered.
But now, the British Regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, is also paying increased attention to the issue of unmonitored communications putting firms in the UK under increased scrutiny.
The rules exist to help prevent market abuse and other misconduct but the emergence of many more popular messaging apps in recent years has made it even harder for firms to enforce them, compounded by an increased number of people working from home.
NatWest has decided – as of November 6 – that the solution is to block employees from using these apps entirely for work business.
The FTSE 100 lender says guidance on only using approved channels has been in place for some time, amid increased regulatory scrutiny in Britain.
Fines issued for banks in the United States have totalled more than $2.5 billion with JPMorgan Chase the first to be hit with a fine in late 2021 when it agreed to pay $200 million over unauthorised use of WhatsApp and personal email accounts among other channels.
Since then multimillion-dollar penalties have been issued to other companies by American regulators including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America.
NatWest has avoided penalisation from American regulators due to its focus on the UK and its being 11.4 per cent owned by the government.
An exercise was undertaken by the British regulating authority in 2022 to examine the policies financial companies have in place to mitigate against the risk and it is currently asking firms to provide details of any recent breaches in relation to unmonitored communications.
A spokesman for NatWest said: ‘Like many organisations, we only permit the use of approved channels for communicating about business matters, whether internally or externally.’
Channels approved by the bank all have retrievable communication records if required.