A rule everybody breaks
is not a control.

Books-and-records obligations do not care which app a conversation happened on. If it concerns the business, it is a record.

Why this became the enforcement story

Regulators have brought a long run of cases about business conversations held on personal devices and consumer messaging apps. The violation is rarely what was said. It is that the firm could not produce the conversation.

Books-and-records obligations do not care which app a communication happened on. If it concerns the business, it is a record.

The realistic picture at most firms

Clients text. Advisors answer, because not answering feels like poor service. The message never reaches any system the firm controls, and everyone knows it.

The policy that says "do not use text messaging" and is universally ignored is worse than no policy, because it establishes that the firm knew and did nothing.

What works

Pick the channels you will support and capture them. Text messaging can be archived. So can most business chat. Choose the small number of ways clients may reach you, make them work properly, and say so.

Tell clients, in writing, where to reach you. Most will comply if asked once and reminded when they drift.

Have an answer for the message that arrives anyway. The usual approach: respond on the supported channel, and if the substance mattered, forward it into the record.

Check. A policy nobody tests is an assumption. Periodic attestation plus a look at whether the archive contains what you would expect is the minimum.

Personal devices

Most small firms cannot realistically issue phones. That makes the archiving question sharper, not softer — if business messages will be sent from personal phones, the firm needs a supported way to send them that captures the record.

The uncomfortable part

Getting this right requires telling clients that one convenient way of reaching you is not available. Firms that have done it report the conversation is far less painful than expected: clients understand that a regulated business keeps records, and several find it reassuring.

What an examiner asks for →