Managing change without compromising compliance

On the 21st-22nd of June we attended the Compliance and Conduct Risk in Financial Services Forum where we held a workshop session with our partners O2, showcasing how technology can help meet the ever changing regulatory and stakeholder demands without compromising compliance.
We caught up with our guest speakers Garry White (Business Systems) and Mark Baggs (O2) who gave us an overview on what they discussed in their leading session “Evidencing the journey – Managing change without compromising compliance”.

Garry White, Business Systems (UK)

Many of you may be familiar with the Donald Rumsfield speech:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know.

But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know”.

This speech has never been more relevant as the regulatory framework for the financial industry tightens. Financial Institutions are called upon not only to perform telephone transactions in a specified manner, but also to record and provide evidence of compliant conduct under strict time constraints. For organisations with thousands and millions of phone transactions, it is impossible to be certain that each and every one of those transactions follow procedure –whether this relates to code of conduct, process or technology.

Regulatory guidance as well as experience provide some direction in provisioning for and controlling events that are not currently known (such as the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive aka MiFID II). It is however the vast majority of unknown parameters surrounding the life-cycle of a transaction that pose the highest risk. Whereas verbal noncompliance might be spotted only if placed into context, there is also the technologically induced risk to consider. How can you say for example, with all certainty that every single one of the calls is accurately recorded? Or the vast depot of historic recordings is 100% intact and accessible?
This is where technology can help with a number of different solutions including a call retrieval and replay portal enabling organisations to easily retrieve and replay recordings from their entire repository – often dating many years back. In addition to this, technology can also help with the automated testing of the entire voice domain to spot real time call recording failures. Finally, utilising speech analytics to pick up on compliance breaches triggered through phrases and pre-defined alerts is also proving a valuable tool.
There is no way we can avoid the unknown unknowns. The only way is to place the right safeguards (with technology the prime enabler) that will help you prepare for any eventualities and in turn spot potential risks faster.

Mark Baggs, O2

In today’s world mobility in the workplace is common practice accompanied with a 37% rise in flexible working. Workers have become increasingly mobile with the majority of organisations supporting the growing number of employees who use mobile devices (such as tablets or smartphones) to complete their work either at the office, at home or whilst travelling.

The changing work practice represents a known unknown. Organisations are well aware of the changing practice and are trying to prepare for the unexpected, but if your employees are not present in the business environment, how will you ensure they are staying compliant throughout their communications?

Another question to ask yourself is how secure your mobile infrastructure actually is. With an ever tightening regulatory framework that aims, among other things to establish transparency in market conduct and crack down on rogue trading, the need to consider what it means to have a robust mobile call recording solution in place is now more important than ever.
With the introduction of several recording solutions throughout the years, technology has led us towards a solution that will provide a reliable and seamless user experience at home as well as abroad, embracing the known unknown of flexible working rather than shying away from this changing work practice.

If you want to find out ore feel free to contact us: 0800 458 2988, [email protected].