BK Bank of New York Mellon Corporation

New York's top banking regulator struck a deal Monday with four major banks over record-keeping at the new chat and messaging platform, Symphony Communications LLC.

The New York State Department of Financial Services, which had expressed concerns that certain Symphony features could hinder regulatory investigations, said the agreement covers record-keeping requirements and other protections "to help ensure the banks' responsible use" of the platform.

The agreement was reached with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group AG, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp.—four banks regulated by the agency and among the 14 banks and money managers invested in the company's technology.

Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse declined to comment on the agreement, and a Bank of New York Mellon spokesman was unable to be reached. A representative of Goldman Sachs said "We are pleased our discussions with the DFS have been constructive and Symphony's messaging solution addresses their concerns and further enhances our process around security and compliance."

The four banks that reached agreements represent all of the banks within the consortium that NYDFS regulates, the regulator said.

Under the agreement, Symphony will retain for seven years a copy of all e-communications sent through its platforms to or from the four banks, and the four banks will store duplicate copies of the decryption keys for their messages with independent custodians.

Dow Jones & Co., which owns The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has agreed to provide news content on the Symphony service. Dow Jones is a unit of News Corp.

In July, NYDFS had asked software-company Symphony for details about its document retention and deletion, encryption services and open-source features.

Banks have coalesced around the Silicon Valley startup as the industry seeks ways for employees to instantly and securely communicate with each other. The service, set to launch this week, is viewed as a potential lower cost alternative to a popular messaging service on Bloomberg LP's terminals.

"We are pleased that these banks did the right thing by working cooperatively with us to help address our concerns about this new messaging platform," said Anthony Albanese, Acting Superintendent of Financial Services. "This is a critical issue since chats and other electronic records have provided key evidence in investigations of wrongdoing on Wall Street."

Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2015 12:35 ET (16:35 GMT)

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