Royal Bank of Canada’s investment-banking arm fired John Reed, the head of equity syndicate, over communications that violated the firm’s compliance guidelines, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
An RBC representative declined to comment, while Reed didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wall Street regulators have been cracking down on how global financial firms and banks monitor employees’ communications on unauthorized messaging apps, and have imposed fines of more than US$2 billion related to compliance failures.
Firms are required to scrupulously monitor communications involving their business to head off improper conduct. That system, already challenged by the proliferation of mobile-messaging apps, was strained further when the Covid-19 pandemic forced most of Wall Street to work from home.
Reed’s ouster follows the departure of Credit Suisse Group AG’s most senior equity capital markets syndicate banker earlier this year after he was found to have used unauthorized messaging services when communicating with clients.
Reed, who’s based in New York, joined RBC in 2016 after spending nine years at Deutsche Bank AG, according to his Finra record.
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