6 technologies that will drive recording compliance in 2017

We’ve recently updated this article from a 2018 perspective. Check out our updated blog ‘6 technologies driving recording compliance in 2018′

As regulatory frameworks within the financial industry tighten, the need to consider robust solutions that will help financial organisations meet regulatory and stakeholder demands without compromising compliance is now more important than ever.

Heard this around a hundred times now?

We thought as much. And so we wanted to get straight to the point, and provide a breakdown of what we see as the ‘must have’ compliance-driven solutions and what they can deliver. With MiFID II around the corner, here are the top 6 technologies that will help achieve the required levels of compliance for 2017 and beyond.

1. Process Automation

Ensuring 100% uptime of the recording infrastructure is important, but heavily relies on manpower which makes the process time-consuming and prone to human error. This is where end-to-end automated testing solutions come in to provide:

• Automated testing of voice systems – Checks that all voice systems are working and ready for the beginning of the day, by performing active and passive tests on the entire voice domain and instantly alerting on errors such as voice quality or component failure.
• Systems compliance assurance – Checks that the call recording infrastructure performs according to specified criteria, for example ensuring calls are being retained and/or archived according to policy, verifying the audio quality of calls, or checking if unauthorised users have been created.

Don’t forget – automation isn’t only for testing – it can also be applied to the extraction of historically recorded calls, (whether they reside on tape or network storage), in a fully auditable and secure manner ensuring the extraction process is conducted in line with an organisations compliance obligations.

2. Interaction Analytics

Financial Institutions are called upon to record and provide evidence of compliant conduct under strict time constraints. With this in mind, the adoption of a more proactive approach to manage risk may be as important as finding the appropriate recordings within the required deadline.
One such established technology which can help in managing risk is Interaction Analytics. The technology is able to monitor all forms of trade related communications such as email, phone, text and mobile rather than just a random sample, to spot pre-defined keywords and expressions. This will enable a compliance officer to retrieve timely and accurately the entirety of the communications related to the trade under investigation. In a similar manner, by searching proactively through the recordings for ‘high risk’ keywords and phrases, as well as intent and behaviours that may indicate potential market abuse and fraud, compliance can isolate issues and prevent them from escalating. Finally, Interaction Analytics, can also provide an evidence trail as to how compliance departments found such behaviour, allowing them to present this in an auditable fashion to the regulators as part of their suspicious transactions and orders report (STORS).

3. Mobile Call Recording

 Mobile call recording technologies have matured and no longer rely on application-based recording. Instead, solutions include an ‘In Network’ SIM-based recording solution which utilises the call routing being carried out by the mobile network provider, with a duplicate stream of the call being sent to the recording solution.
The advantage of these solutions is a more reliable and seamless user experience, maintaining high audio quality levels. Moreover, some network-based solution providers are able to tailor the recording solution according to the customers’ requirements. As an example, this may include working within a financial institution’s existing network infrastructure to dual stream mobile recordings into multiple call recording platforms.

4. Legacy Call Retrieval and Replay

A controversial one. For financial institutions, call recording and retention of calls is not a choice, but a serious FCA requirement extended under the financial legislation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). A legacy call recording retrieval solution can ensure the long term retention, retrieval and replay of past and current audio files, via one centralised access portal.
Placed on top of both live and legacy call recording systems, these solutions can quickly and easily access specified recordings through their search and replay functionality, whilst also maintaining data integrity as all calls can remain on the original file structure and format. This means compliance and IT teams can efficiently search, extract and playback audio recordings from multiple legacy and live call recorders, regardless of manufacturer or location. It also means that end-of-support and end-of-life issues will not impede their call recording infrastructure and assets.

5. Business Intelligence

With dashboard reporting and performance management applications, financial firms can benefit from real time business intelligence used to uncover inconsistencies and anomalies in trade-related communications. Such inconsistencies could be repetitive, long duration calls or the breaching of internal policies (ethical walls) which could indicate potential insider trading.
Offering a single view of organisational performance, meaningful information is consolidated from third party data sources or applications across the organisation into one place for users to tap into context driven information from multiple systems (including the organisations telephony, CRM system and back office applications).
For financial institutions this information can be used to identify potential compliance risks, suspicious behaviour, cost savings from under-utilised leased lines and many more benefits.

6. Call Recording

Last but not least, we couldn’t put together this list and forget about our old friend call recording – at the heart of the compliance game and the driver behind millions of communications.
While many regulations focus on the recording and retention of calls, non-voice data is also becoming predominant and these communications need to be recorded and captured as well. Integrating recorded chat, SMS, email, mobile and other types of communication into one multi-channel recording system and interface can therefore reduce the complexity of trade re construction and save financial organisations a large amount of time which would otherwise be spent searching for those singular communications.
We hope you found out checklist of compliance driven solutions useful and as ever, if you need more information or advice on technology within your organisation to manage risk, then contact our team.

Technologies mentioned in this article:
> Robotic Process Automation
> Speech & Interaction Analytics
> Mobile Call Recording
> Legacy Call Retrieval & Replay
> Business Intelligence
> Call Recording