WhatsApp is just one of the numerous mobile communication apps available and currently being used by traders, broker-dealers, investment and financial advisors, and many more in the financial sector.
While using WhatsApp is highly convenient and effective for employees, the platform can cause severe compliance and security breaches for financial firms who are already dealing with other complex mandates from FINRA, SEC, IIROC, FCA, and MiFID II to record voice calls and archive text messages.
How can financial firms meet compliance when using Whatsapp?
There are solutions available that allow organisations to record and store conversations on messaging apps, such as WhatsApp Archiver.
The benefits of using WhatsApp Archiver in your business include:
- Communicate using WhatsApp and stay compliant by archiving all WhatsApp text messages and attachments
- Use WhatsApp to communicate with customers, employees, and stakeholders without the risk of non-compliance
- Search, track and retrieve WhatsApp messages in the corporate archive
TeleMesage WhatsApp Archiver Introduction
How does WhatsApp Recording and Archiving work?
WhatsApp Archiver simply gets installed onto the users’ phone, to be used when they are engaging in work related communications – with fellow colleagues or customers.
Features include:
- Archive WhatsApp communication for iOS and Android devices
- Uses standard WhatsApp interface and encryption
- Works from Mobile App, WhatsApp Web, WhatsApp Desktop
- Captures & records WhatsApp calls, messages, deletions, including text, multimedia, files
- WhatsApp communication is uploaded to the company enterprise archive
- Archived WhatsApp messages and calls stored with all content, employee email and other message metadata
- Search, find & retrieve WhatsApp calls, messages and deletions in the corporate archive
- Complete separation between private and business texts on BYOD devices
- Automatic archiving operates in the background without any user intervention
- End-to-End encryption from phone through corporate archive
Note – there is complete separation between private and business texts on BYOD devices. When communicating with personal contacts, users would access the messaging platform through the native WhatsApp interface keeping these conversations private.
Why is WhatsApp a compliance problem for financial firms?
WhatsApp, like other consumer-grade end-to-end encryption chat services in the market, is a platform where messages can be extremely challenging to capture and record for compliance and monitoring purposes.
It is for this reason, that many financial firms which are required by law to retain relevant trade conversations in a secure, accessible, and unalterable data repository, choose to ban WhatsApp and other mobile messaging apps in their workplace.
Though a no-WhatsApp policy may seem like an easy solution for firms to avoid the risk of non-compliance, it is not an effective measure. If an employee is found to have sent a message containing trade information or customer data, even a company with a no-WhatsApp or no-texting policy will suffer the same level of charges and penalties as those that allow their employees to use such apps.
- With a large majority of the workforce now operating from home, using WhatsApp to engage with clients is becoming more and more common, with companies unable to monitor its use and employees using any tools and means available to them to get the job done.
In fact, while email still remains the most commonly used mode of communication in the workplace, recent messaging trends show that its usage has been declining. On the other hand, text messaging and mobile chat apps such as WhatsApp are fast becoming the tool of choice among employees because they are easy to use, instant, and widespread – ensuring faster response than email.
For more information on WhatsApp Business Call Recording, contact our team.
