NY regulator reaches agreement over Symphony
Bank of New York Mellon, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have all reached an agreement with New York State's Department of Financial Services over record-keeping for the Symphony messaging system. As part of a consortium of 14 financial institutions that have set up the Symphony service, all have agreed to retain a copy of their chat messages for seven years, as well as duplicate copies of the decryption keys for their messages with independent custodians. &nbsp;As we previously noted, Goldman Sachs' Symphony Communications is considered to be a rival to Bloomberg's messaging system, and was created when it emerged that Bloomberg reporters had used private terminal data to spy on bank employees.
As Symphony Communications Services notched a key victory in establishing itself as a viable messaging option for financial institutions, CEO David Gurle said Tuesday that this is only the beginning for the company.

"We have to start somewhere," Gurle said in a CNBC "Squawk Alley" interview, adding that starting out as a financial services messaging platform will help the company further grow down the road.

"Messaging is [financial services'] nervous system. The bar is very high with respect to the performance of the platform and the security and compliance requirements," Gurle added. "Starting here is going to give us the passport to take our solution to many other markets."

Gurle made his remarks a day after the New York State Department of Financial Services said it had struck a deal with four major banks on the recordkeeping requirements for the use of Symphony's messaging platform, which is similar to that of a Bloomberg terminal.

"This is a critical issue since chats and other electronic records have provided key evidence in investigations of wrongdoing on Wall Street. It is vital that regulators act to ensure that these records do not fall into a digital black hole," Anthony Albanese, acting superintendent of financial services, said in a release.

The four major banks in the deal are Goldman Sachs , Deutsche Bank , Credit Suisse and Bank of New York Mellon .