Barclays fined over records failure

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Banking giant Barclays has been fined a total of $3.75 million (£2.28 million) by US regulators over accusations that it failed to keep adequate electronic records.

According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), the shortcomings from the bank occurred between 2002 and 2012.

Finra claims that the bank failed to preserve data detailing orders, confirmation of trades and records of accounts.

The watchdog went on to say that the bank had also not done enough to ensure that vital items of data and information had been altered or destroyed.

Barclays is yet to admit or deny the allegations but has agreed to a censure.

A consent order by Finra said that the bank as a firm was responsible for dealing with around 2.8 million electronic communications everyday.

Of those communications, 500,000 of those were emails through Bloomberg and 20,000 were instant messages.

The order stressed that that it did not believe that the failure of the bank to properly archive these communications was not necessarily deliberate, but was instead likely to be down to a technical issue with transferring messages from an external served hosted by Bloomberg to a central repository used by Barclays itself.

Finally, the regulator said that the bank had also failed to maintain an adequate system with written procedures that would comply with SEC, NASD, and FINRA rules and regulations, and had not been quick enough in detecting remedy deficiencies related to those requirements.

The investigation was conducted on behalf of Finra by Eric Adams and Katrina Laperuta, under the supervision of Michael Choi and Richard Best.

Brad Bennett, enforcement chief at Finra, said: "Ensuring the integrity, accuracy and accessibility of electronic books and records is essential to a firm's ability to meet its compliance obligations."

Storetec News/Blogs “http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/barclays-fined-over-records-failure”. Barclays fined over records failure. December 29, 2013. Storetec.