The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced $88 million in fines against Stifel, Nicolaus & Company and 11 other broker-dealers and investment advisors and a hybrid firm for “longstanding failures” to keep records of their off-channel electronic communications.

The SEC said that each of the firms, including Stifel and Invesco Distributors, which includes Invesco Advisers, agreed to the penalties as part of an agreement in which they admitted that “their conduct violated recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws."

The SEC has levied more than $3 billion in fines against firms as part of their crackdown on unauthorized texting on WhatsApp and other messaging apps and recordkeeping failures.

The following firms were penalized as part of the settlement:

• Stifel, Nicolaus & Company in St. Louis, $35 million.
• Invesco Distributors in Atlanta and Invesco Advisers in Houston, $35 million.
• CIBC World Markets and CIBC Private Wealth Advisors, $12 million.
• Glazer Capital in New York City, $2 million.
• Intesa Sanpaolo IMI Securities in New York City, $1.5 million.
• Canaccord Genuity in New York City,  $1.25 million.
• Regions Securities in Atlanta, $750,000 penalty.
• Alpaca Securities in Babcock Ranch, Fla., $400,000.
• Focused Wealth Management in Newburgh, N.Y., $325,000 penalty.

Qatalyst Partners was part of the agreement but was not fined, the SEC said. Qatalyst took substantial steps to comply, self-report and remediate their violations. As a result, paid no penalty, the SEC said.

The SEC said investigations into all the firms except for Qatalyst “uncovered pervasive and longstanding use of unapproved communication methods, known as off-channel communications."

Each of the firms “admitted ... their personnel sent and received off-channel communications that were records required to be maintained under securities laws. The failure to maintain and preserve required records deprives the SEC of these communications in our investigations. The failures involved personnel at multiple levels of authority, including supervisors and senior managers,” the agency said.

Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said violators of the communications rules can expect to face "robust" penalties. But he added that firms that self-report violations and cooperate with investigations "may receive significantly reduced penalties."

In August, more than two dozen firms, including Ameriprise Financial Services, Edward D. Jones & Co., LPL Financial and Raymond James & Associates, paid $393 million in fines to settle SEC off-channel recordkeeping charges.