“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning to ban traders from using some computer-messaging services in a bid to protect proprietary information at the heart of its sales-and-trading operation.”

“Under a new policy, the Wall Street firm won’t allow person-to-person communication over instant-messaging services created by Bloomberg LP, Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc. and other third-party providers including Pivot Inc., according to a draft of a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Pivot is a unit of CME Group Inc.”

“Goldman is seeking to prevent information from internal conversations from being filtered and disseminated beyond the bank’s walls. The planned ban reflects a mistrust of technology developed by messaging-service providers that can make its traders more efficient but also be used to mine private communications for closely guarded intelligence on securities pricing.”

“At the same time, the firm and a number of rivals have backed a messaging service launched by data provider Markit, which is co-owned by several banks. The Markit offering gives them an alternative to Bloomberg, which competes with Wall Street firms on several fronts, including trading platforms.”

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Read full Wall Street Journal article here.