Citigroup Cuts Off Some Bloomberg Terminal Chat Services

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) is cutting off its foreign exchange division’s access to two internal chat groups on their Bloomberg terminals at a time when banks are on heigthened security alert after the financial data giant admitted to privacy breaches last week.

The traders will switch to an internal platform by the end of the month. Traders may still use Bloomberg’s instant messaging service to contact people outside Citi, a Bloomberg spokeswoman said.

Moving the chat groups -- which provides traders with live access to clients’ trading activities around the world -- to internal servers could help the bank's security concerns and might also reduce costs. On Monday, a trove of old chat logs were found leaked onto a website.

Citi said the decision to move the intra-bank chatter onto its own system was planned before Bloomberg’s privacy breaches.

“This move has been in the works for some time and is unrelated to issues,” the bank said in a statement.

A Bloomberg spokeswoman said the decision was made last summer to move the groups onto Citi's own servers.

JPMorgan Chase also took action earlier this week by asking Bloomberg to provide details on the information it gathered about the bank's employees.

“Our legal department sent a formal request to Bloomberg to verify exactly what information reporters had access to and confirmation of their controls on prevent future beaches,” JPMorgan Chase said in a statement.