Legacy Technology Creates the Biggest Voice Surveillance Risk for Banks

Following the publication of the 2024 1LoD Surveillance Benchmarking Survey & Report, which includes feedback from over 30 leading global banks, Wordwatch has helped produce a In-depth Report that outlines the next steps banks should consider to modernise their current voice surveillance practices.

The Wordwatch-sponsored paper, “The biggest risk in voice surveillance isn’t surveillance”, looks in detail at both the operational and financial risks of running and maintaining multiple legacy systems, particularly those nearing the end of their life cycle.

Banks are increasingly recognising the need to retire outdated systems and transition to a single, integrated platform to help combat a number of challenges, including:

• Compliance: Regulatory bodies require banks to retain specific sets of interaction records for up to seven years, which must be readily accessible and, importantly, in their original, unaltered state. Those with fragmented and outdated systems may struggle to meet these requirements, creating a compliance risk.
• Archiving & Retrieval Issues: Legacy systems can often complicate the archiving, indexing, and retrieval of voice data, hindering compliance efforts.
• Over-Retention Risks: Outdated systems often lead to over-retention of data, meaning banks may retain voice recordings that are no longer required, inadvertently expanding the scope of regulatory scrutiny.  This is a big issue that not only increases data storage & maintenance costs but exposes banks to additional regulatory risks.

In the paper we offer insights into integrating a centralised solution that manages all data capture, migration, storage and retrieval needs, emphasising the importance of scalability, to anticipate data volumes and the ability to search hundreds of millions (or even billions) of call and interaction data within seconds. It is possible and action is needed to keep one step ahead of regulatory rules and requests.

The main take-away in our report is that “doing nothing is not an option.” There is significant risk and cost residing in banks’ legacy voice-retention programmes, and without good foundations, no amount of machine learning or AI will help banks with their core compliance requirements. For those looking to invest in this area, the message is clear: look at your voice programme from beginning to end – and prioritise that spend where the true risk is highest.

To download the report, click here.