Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has prohibited usage of expletives in e-mails, attempting to bring some moral decorum in an otherwise chaotic online culture hyphenated with frauds and speculative betting, as exposed by the recent financial crisis.
The edict came verbally rather than in writing, The Wall Street Journal reported. However, the directive does not detail as to which words are banned, but says it will use screening tools to detect common swear words and acronyms.
In the volatile world of Wall Street, where emotions rise and fall with stock prices, maintaining verbal purity could be demanding. Especially in the present scenario, when yo-yoing economic data has been dampening the Wall Street mood, traders had to relent now with brokerages and banks under government and media scrutiny, and discipline their employees.
Currently, Citigroup (NYSE: C) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) have similar ordinances against swear words in place. NYSE Euronext also consistently circulates memos requiring verbal discipline, especially since TVs have been doing live coverage of the trading floor.
Recently, Goldman Sachs was also in the limelight as it roped in filmmaker Ric Burns of "The Civil War" fame to shoot a documentary on Wall Street. But it is seen more as a PR exercise after Goldman emerged from a $550 million settlement with SEC on charges of milking clients by selling mortgage securities primarily designed to cash in on the housing market decline.
Post-crisis, Wall Street bankers have a lot to clean from marred CEO images, exorbitant bonuses, undisciplined betting, ponzi schemes, etc., thus the sanitization of language seems a tad bit amiss.
While Feds are trying to bring in fiscal discipline, banks seem to be trying verbal discipline.
An expletive or two can possibly dent an already flagging image, but it remains to be seen if it can do something to heal severely damaged consumer sentiment.
International Business Times, The Global Business News Leader
