Bank of America puts aside $200M for SEC probe
(Reuters) — Bank of America has set aside around $200 million for a regulatory matter connected to the unauthorized use of personal phones, its chief financial officer, Alastair Borthwick, said Monday, adding that he expects the matter to be settled soon.
Last year, Reuters reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into whether Wall Street banks have been adequately documenting employees' work-related communications, such as text messages and emails, during the work-from-home period of the pandemic.
During its second-quarter earnings Monday, Bank of America recorded $425 million in expenses to address regulatory matters, $225 million of which related to federal regulatory fines issued last week over the bank's handling of pandemic jobless benefits, Mr. Borthwick said.
The remainder, roughly $200 million, is earmarked for other probes into how the bank kept track of employee communications on their personal devices, like cell phones, he said.
