The NatWest Group has blocked WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Skype messaging services on the UK company devices to prevent employees from talking to each other.
The bank had also asked employees to restrict all business conversations to "approved channels."
And now, it's taken it another notch up by rendering it impossible to access the platforms on work phones and computers.

So-called off-channel communications are a persistent problem both in business and in politics, the service of having concerns that services like WhatsApp would create less scrutiny that some conversations can undergo.

Messages can be tough to get back or even set to disappear - whereas those sent via approved channels are fully retrievable, meaning they can be looked into when there's suspected wrongdoing.

"Like many organizations, we only allow approved channels for discussing business-related issues, whether internal or external," NatWest said in a statement.

It said the policy was enacted earlier this month.

US banks have been issued fines of over $2.8bn (£2.18bn) in recent years under record-keeping regulations - and workers can't even recover old messages from some messaging services.

JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup will be among them.

In August it emerged that the UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is mulling an investigation into how bank workers are using messaging services.

It comes as energy regulator Ofgem fined Morgan Stanley for calls made on private phones over WhatsApp - a breach of the rules on record-keeping.

Outside of banking, there are questions about people using applications within the public sector-questions over how Ministers have operated WhatsApp for government business in recent years.

The UK Covid inquiry has found that officials and ministers deleted WhatsApp messages exchanged during the pandemic.

That included then-prime minister Boris Johnson, with then-cabinet member Penny Mordaunt telling the inquiry that two years of messages with him had disappeared. Johnson told the inquiry he had lost around 5,000 messages.