There are some definite parallels today between the latest (comparatively minor compared to the rest) upset at Credit Suisse, and a June ruction at JPMorgan. – The Financial Times reports that Credit Suisse has asked employees for access to mobile phones used to communicate with clients and colleagues, and has requested that messages sent already must not be deleted. In June, JPMorgan asked employees to scroll through every WhatsApp message they’d sent in the past three years and to save any that were related to work.
It’s possible that regulators are driving the new climate of employer intrusiveness. JPMorgan has just been fined $20m by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission for inadequate monitoring of employee communications, suggesting that banks are being forced to read through employees’ old WhatsApps, even if they don’t want to.
Blaming the regulator is unlikely to do much to passify people at Credit Suisse though….
