Goldman, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and BNY Mellon reach Records Agreement with New York DFS

A consortium of banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BNY Mellon has reached an agreement with New York’s financial regulator over storage of data and message records by its communications platform, Symphony Communication Services LLC.

Under terms of the agreement announced Monday, Symphony will retain message data for seven years and individual banks agreed to store decryption keys for the messages with independent custodians, according to New York’s Department of Financial Services. The agreement ends the regulator’s probe into the company’s handling of data.

“This is a critical issue since chats and other electronic records have provided key evidence in investigations of wrongdoing on Wall Street,” Anthony Albanese, acting superintendent of financial services, said in a statement. “It is vital that regulators act to ensure that these records do not fall into a digital black hole.”

Symphony is backed by a consortium of banks and hedge funds, including four licensed by the state of New York: Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. The four banks that reached the agreement with DFS represent all 14 banks and financial institutions that control Symphony, according to the regulator’s statement. DFS said the terms of the agreement should apply to any New York- regulated financial institution that uses Symphony.

Spokesmen for Goldman and BNY Mellon said they were pleased to have resolved the regulator’s concerns. Spokesmen for Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

Symphony, based in Palo Alto, California, was created to challenge Bloomberg LP’s dominance of electronic messaging at financial firms. Bloomberg LP is the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Jr.Trader G.Hristov