Goldman Sachs has fired several executives of its transaction banking business over compliance failure, according to a memo seen Wednesday by Reuters and Bloomberg.
Four employees, including Hari Moorthy, the head of transaction banking, were among the people let go following a violation of the firm’s communication policy, the publications reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
“We are not going to comment on individual disciplinary matters. As a general matter, we take our communications policy seriously, and we expect all of our personnel to comply with it,” Goldman said in a statement. “Goldman Sachs remains fully committed to our transaction banking business.”
The executives did not comply with the company rule that states employees must discuss business matters on firm-approved communication channels and failed to cooperate with the bank’s compliance department, according to the memo.
Moorthy did not respond to a request for comment from the outlets.
Philip Berlinski, Goldman’s treasurer, will oversee the transaction banking business along with Akila Raman and Luc Teboul. Berlinski is also the interim head of the lender’s financial technology and consumer business, Reuters noted.
Transaction banking is one of Goldman’s new ventures, launched in 2020. At its investor day in February, Goldman highlighted the young business’ profitability — a standout in the bank’s Platform Solutions division, which includes home-improvement lender GreenSky, credit cards and a subset of business from digital consumer bank Marcus.
However, a segment of Goldman’s transaction banking business stopped accepting higher-risk clients after the Federal Reserve warned the lender of insufficient due diligence and monitoring processes involving its partnerships with fintechs, the Financial Times reported in August, citing people familiar with the matter. Some employees of the transaction banking division also flagged Goldman’s tendency to minimize risks, sources told the publication at the time.
Recordkeeping has come under regulator scrutiny in recent years. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined Goldman $200 million in September 2022 in a crackdown on corporate employees’ use of “off-channel” communications like WhatsApp for business purposes. The same regulators hit 11 firms with another wave of similar penalties last month.
Goldman agreed to pay the CFTC a separate $5.5 million last month for failing to track staff mobile-phone calls and for breaching an order from November 2019.
