Known for the colossal salaries of their employees, investment banks do not refrain, conversely, from chipping away at the income of a troublemaker employee.
Morgan Stanley bankers can attest to that.
Some of them have seen their pay slips reduced by several thousand dollars, reveals the
Financial Times
, the punishment going up to a million dollars for the most experienced profiles.
In question ?
These financiers used their personal messaging accounts, including WhatsApp, as part of their professional activities.
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Far from being anecdotal, this practice, which is visibly deeply rooted among Morgan Stanley employees, can be costly for establishments: JPMorgan thus agreed, at the end of 2021, to pay some $ 200 million in fines imposed by the regulatory authority of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
She discovered “
widespread out-of-channel communications
” between traders and investment bankers.
However, since the 1930s, official communications between these financial players have been duly listed in registers in order to “
preserve the integrity of the market
”, recalled the president of the SEC at the time.
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The SEC may have carried out its costly threats a few months ago, some financiers have still not taken the fold and continue to discuss their financial transactions on WhatsApp.
Morgan Stanley has therefore decided to postpone the financial sanctions directly on the pay of the culprits.
The
Financial Times
says that the amount of the penalties imposed is based on a points system with aggravating factors: volume of messages sent, seniority of the banker, number of warnings received beforehand...
Sanctions are accompanied by training provided internally to raise employee awareness.
They are explained, according to the British daily, that a simple message to determine the time or place of a meeting can lead to more in-depth exchanges that are completely out of the nails.
The texting affair revealed last September had led to a major crackdown by the SEC.
The banks concerned, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, had to pay the equivalent of just over a billion euros in fines in total, not to mention the dismissal of certain senior executives, including the two leaders of the
Morgan Stanley
raw materials
department .
