The Colombian banks and financial institutions that have received the most fines for not complying with the SEC and Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia rules for text message archiving, along with the specific amount of the fines that each bank paid since 2018:
| Financial Institution | Year | Fine (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Bancolombia | 2018 | $5 million |
| Bancolombia | 2022 | $1 million |
| Davivienda | 2019 | $3 million |
| BBVA | 2020 | $2 million |
| BTG Pactual | 2021 | $1 million |
| Scotiabank Colpatria | 2022 | $500,000 |
Bancolombia, a leading Financial Group with more than 146 years of experience (and listed on the NYSE for 28 years) and Colombia’s largest bank:
has been fined the most for failing to comply with the text message archiving rules, with a total of $6 million in fines since 2018.
Banco Davivienda, owned by Grupo Empresarial Bolívar and a regional holding with more than 80 years of experience has been fined the second most, with $3 million in fines. The other banks have each been fined less than $2 million.
Notably, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (‘BBVA’) also voluntarily paid fines in 2021 to the Spanish data protection authority (‘AEPD’) for violation of Article 6(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation , as it had processed the personal data of the claimant without having any legitimacy to do so.
Furthermore, not only Colombian financial institutions were fined for violating the SEC and Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia’s text message archiving rules. In recent years, Colombian regulatory authorities have imposed fines on several other banks and financial institutions for failing to comply with its rules.
The focus on text message archiving by regulatory authorities in Colombia is a recognition that rules to protect financial institution investors entail a more encompassing effort to ensure that the financial institutions are complying with full disclosure requirements. The rules (like those of the US SEC and FINRA) require financial institutions to preserve all electronic communications related to their business activities, including text messages, emails, and instant messaging apps.
Recognition of Text Archiving Importance
The Colombian rules are modeled on the SEC, which requires archiving of
“…. written business communications conveyed electronically using, for example, text/SMS messaging, instant messaging, personal email, and personal or private messaging. … communications when conducted on the adviser’s systems or third-party applications (“apps”) or platforms or sent using the adviser’s computers, mobile devices issued by advisory firms, or personally owned computers or mobile devices used by the adviser’s personnel for the adviser’s business.”
Fining financial institutions that fail to comply with the text message archiving rules sends the message that Columbian regulatory authorities are serious about enforcing these rules. The enforcement actions also remind financial institutions that they are required to have effective compliance programs in place to meet all applicable regulations.
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