more than a dozen financial institutions agreed to pay more than 1 billion collectively for failing to properly collect employees’ text messages for their records the securities and exchange commission announced tuesday eight banks agreed to pay 125 million apiece joining jp morgan chase  co jpm  which agreed to pay the same amount late last year establishing a record at the time for fines related to recordkeeping two other firms agreed to pay 50 million apiece and one agreed to a 10 million penalty “today’s actions both in terms of the firms involved and the size of the penalties ordered underscore the importance of recordkeeping requirements they’re sacrosanct” the director of the sec’s enforcement division gurbir grewal said in a statement “if there are allegations of wrongdoing or misconduct we must be able to examine a firm’s books and records to determine what happened” the sec said that the banks failed to collect communications from employees’ private devices and messaging apps that involved business matters from january 2018 to september 2021 across all levels of authority within their organizations in addition to paying fines the banks “have begun implementing improvements to their compliance policies and procedures to settle these matters” the sec stated the eight banks joining jp morgan in paying 125 million are barclays plc barc  bank of america corp bac  along with merrill lynch citigroup inc c  credit suisse group ag csgn  deutsche bank ag dbk  goldman sachs group inc gs  morgan stanley ms and ubs group ag ubs  jefferies financial group inc jef and nomura holdings inc 8604 will pay 50 million while cantor fitzgerald inc will pay 10 million they have all been charged with violating recordkeeping provisions and failing to properly supervise according to the sec the firms also reached agreement with the commodity futures trading commission on similar charges the sec announced without providing further detail the agency also disclosed that the investigation continues “other broker dealers and asset managers who are subject to similar requirements under the federal securities laws would be wellserved to selfreport and selfremediate any deficiencies” grewal said in his statement