Traders illegally use applications such as WhatsApp, and it is reported that many Wall Street banks will pay fines of more than 1 billion US dollars.

CTOnews.com, Aug. 20 (Xinhua)-- according to the Wall Street Journal, several large Wall Street banks are about to reach an agreement to pay fines of up to $200 million each and admit that their employees violated regulatory requirements by using WhatsApp and other personal messaging apps.

CTOnews.com learned that under the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), brokerages should retain and monitor written communications from employees to ensure that regulators have paper clues when checking for compliance with investor protection laws.

The total fine could exceed $1 billion (about 6.82 billion yuan), and the settlement will be announced by the end of September, according to people familiar with the matter.

The list of banks paying $200 million includes Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS, the report said. Jeffery and Nomura will also reach a settlement with regulators but will pay a lower fine, according to people familiar with the matter.