More than 20,000 companies are now using the compliance services in Thomson ReutersEikon Messenger, an indication of growing awareness across the financial and professional services industries of the need for secure and compliant instant messaging communications.

Instant messaging is a crucial tool for timely internal and external communications by financial and other professionals, used particularly for conducting business, and building and maintaining client relationships. Recent regulatory and criminal investigations emphasise the ongoing need for financial and other institutions to actively control, record, archive and monitor employee messages.

Thomson Reuters Eikon Messenger includes a proprietary bilateral chat function that restricts group conversations to a maximum of two companies at one time. This reduces administrative burden and increases efficiency without compromising control, helping provide increased confidence for risk and compliance professionals, as well as Eikon Messenger users themselves. Eikon Messenger also offers full audit trails and transcripts to help companies comply with the varied global regulations for recordkeeping and transcript recall. As a result, all Eikon Messenger conversations and content are recorded, including chat rooms, file sharing, forms and screenshots.

“Since Thomson Reuters introduced the bilateral chat function in March this year, we have seen a surge in activity on Eikon Messenger as more and more companies realise the benefits of a secure and compliance-enabling instant messaging tool,” said Yvette Jackson, global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters. “Now, over 75 percent of the millions of messages sent daily over the network are exchanged between different financial institutions, reflecting the confidence that our users have in our services. Firms across the industry are telling us that they want barriers to effective communication brought down and confidence in the tools that they use rebuilt. They are increasingly turning to Eikon Messenger to help do all of this.”

Eikon Messenger is an open and secure instant messaging collaboration tool for the global financial community. Available as part ofThomson Reuters Eikon and as a standalone, free-of-charge application, Eikon Messenger provides users with access to the world’s largest open directory of over 210,000 users across more than 120 countries. 

By running on an open network, Eikon Messenger helps reduce cost and complexity while simultaneously boosting both efficiency and transparency. Communicating over open, connected networks can lead to easier implementation and management of higher compliance standards. The compliance tools in Eikon Messenger are available to all users.