16 Wall Street banking giants agree to settle WhatsApp-related investigations for $1.1 billion

Wall Street banking giants, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, have reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay a total fine of $1.1 billion (7.865 billion yuan) for failing to supervise their employees to prevent them from using unauthorized instant messaging applications, Beijing time reported.

A total of 16 financial services companies have reached settlement agreements with the SEC, the SEC said in a statement on Tuesday. In addition to the above two banks, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are also on the list.

Financial services companies are required to closely monitor employees' personal communications to limit their misconduct. But the monitoring system, which has been challenged by the rapid spread of mobile applications, including WhatsApp, has become even more problematic as financial services companies let employees work from home shortly after the global COVID-19 outbreak.