Thursday’s Headlines: Wall Street Tiptoes into Social Media

While all corporations contend with how to best deal with employee use of Facebook and Twitter, Wall Street firms are edging slowly into social media, as detailed in a DealBook story today. The change is going at a pace considered glacial when compared with the rest of the corporate world, but revolutionary considering most financial firms still do not allow the use of personal e-mail on the job.

At the helm of the change are a handful of start-up firms that usher financial institutions into the modern world of communications, assisting with compliance and other best practices. Said the head of one such firm: “Here they were, these organizations that had never used the social networks because they had completely locked down access. This is the same thing we saw when people started to use the Internet for business purposes.”

A common practice is to stockpile pre-written Twitter messages that can be used by employees at a whim. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney gave 600 of its financial advisors access to Twitter last summer and plans to expand that figure, Wells Fargo has put a group of mortgage consultants on Facebook and Deutsche allowed one of its investment bankers to post pre-approved Tweets about IPOs.

 

Other News:

J.P. Morgan and BofA cut senior mortgage traders and salesmen. [Bloomberg]

The dramatic reorganization at The Hartford leaves 1,600 reps at Woodbury Financial with an uncertain future. [Investment News]

Affiliated Managers Group has taken an equity stake RIA giant Veritable. [Investment News]

CEO pay at Federated Investors, Franklin Resources and T. Rowe rose a combined 28 percent. [WSJ]

Bain will buy a portfolio of leveraged loans from Lloyds worth $793 million. [DealBook]

PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s wealth will help New Zealand technology businesses thanks to the launch of a new venture capital project. [Deal Journal]

A former FrontPoint manager raised $22.9 million for the new Emrys Onshore Fund. [Businessweek]

Colleges are slashing tuition and offering more three-year degrees. [CNN Money]