Your big mouth get can you in trouble, even if you think you’re talking in private: Just ask the long line of bankers whose chat transcripts have been used by law enforcement to ding their employers. For instance, this message from an RBS trader—“its just amazing how libor fixing can make you that much money”—was at the heart of an investigation that left the bank with a $612 million fine. Now, benchmark-fixing investigations have grown up around nearly every one that exists.
“if u cud see ur way to a small drop there might be a steak in it for ya”
Banks have been corporate pioneers when it comes to online chatting; even as chat software Slack is taking over the corporate world, traders at financial institutions have been chatting with their colleagues and counter-parties using the Bloomberg terminal network, among other services. But as the Financial Times reports, the terminal’s high price, along with the company’s move into direct competition with the banks as a trade executor, lead some banks to consider bans on traders in chat rooms—not to mention last year’s revelation about Bloomberg news reporters’ practice of surreptitiously keeping tabs on bankers through the service.
Source: QUARTZ