An unapproved banking app cost the ‘US banking giants’ a collective $1 billion in fines!

The discussions, according to sources, are primarily focused on resolving concerns about the cost component, the arsenal, and technology sharing. According to what is known, the fourth two-plus-two foreign and defense ministerial dialogue between India and the United States took place in Washington in April. There was a discussion about the procurement proposal. General Atomics leased the Indian Navy two MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones for a year of surveillance in the Indian Ocean in 2020. The lease term was then extended.

The failure of the two banking behemoths to save the conversations on the unapproved messaging apps, according to SEC officials, prompted the fine because it violated federal securities law. This is not the first time that financial regulators have rapped American banks on the knuckle over the use of personal devices. According to Reuters, a JP Morgan Chase & Co subsidiary was caught doing the same thing last year and was forced to pay $200 million in fines. Aside from the SEC, the bank was fined by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Meanwhile, Bank of America has already set aside $200 million in its second-quarter earnings report to deal with the previous offences. However, given the new fine, the bank may have to increase the amount. Similarly, British bank Barclays announced in July that it had reached an agreement with regulators to settle the case by paying $200 million in fines. Other offenders that have had to pay fines to regulators include Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group, and Citi.

Why do American banks continue to defy the rule?
Despite federal laws explicitly prohibiting the use of personal devices to communicate with customers, American banks are frequently caught breaking the law. Following the pandemic, the problem has only worsened as most bank employees have gained access to communication tools such as Zoom and Skype, among many others. Employees’ natural instinct is to communicate through personal channels in the majority of cases. Some, on the other hand, use back channels to avoid archiving top-secret, market-moving information.