Aug 6 (Reuters) - Piper Sandler ( PIPR ) has agreed to

pay a total of $16 million as a civil penalty to U.S. regulators

to resolve investigations into its record-keeping practices, the

investment banking firm said on Tuesday.

The firm will pay $14 million to the U.S. Securities and

Exchange Commission (SEC) and $2 million to the Commodity

Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to settle probes into

unapproved business-related communications on messaging

platforms, according to a company filing.

The SEC has been conducting a multi-year initiative to

investigate whether Wall Street banks have been adequately

logging employees' text messages and emails, particularly as

bankers shifted to remote work during the pandemic.

Regulators require banks to keep records of their staff

communications, and typically ban the use of personal email,

texts and messaging applications for work purposes.

Since 2021, the SEC has fined dozens of firms including big

banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co ( JPM ), and Wells Fargo & Co ( WFC )

, a total of over $1.7 billion for such compliance

failures.

Broker-dealers and investment advisers registered with the

SEC are subject to record-keeping requirements, which have

become more challenging to meet due to the increasing use of

off-channel communications.

Earlier in the year, Oppenheimer & Co. and U.S. Bancorp ( USB )

also agreed to $12 million and $8 million in civil

penalties, respectively, to settle SEC's charges over

record-keeping failures.

Piper Sandler ( PIPR ) said that it had set aside $16 million related

to the investigations, as of June 30, 2024.