If you had to playback some important memory like a wedding or graduation that was stored on one of those now-extinct formats, could you do it? Read the PDF or visit us for more details at https://bit.ly/3ARwrHE
2. A compliance officer has likely never uttered these words, “I wish that my regtech
solution made case management even more challenging.” But that’s the current
reality with existing communications archiving solutions. Because we all know that
compliance officers have it “easy.” They need to stretch and rise to do things that
actually challenge them more than COVID did, right?
Every compliance officer reading this article is probably cringing or wincing. Those
in financial services who deal with case management daily handling everything
from account holder requests to providing insights on suspicious activity are
nodding in agreement – they’ve all seen how tough COVID has been on their
colleagues in compliance. It’s not like that department had it easy before COVID. Au
contraire!
Remaining current with constantly shifting regulations is a full-time job. Adjusting
policies and practices to accommodate those changes is not something achieved
with the flick of a switch. Playing in a global market where each market changes its
policies in different ways at different times of the year compounds the challenge of
case management when archived communications data must be retrieved. Bottom
line? Compliance officers are unhappy with their existing communications
archiving solutions because it makes case management extra challenging.
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Play it again, Sam …
Maybe the most misquoted movie line of all time
went unnoticed there, or maybe you caught the
double entendre …? If you can’t go back to the
archive to replay what you think you heard, how
do you know if it was even said? Indeed, that’s
the conundrum that compliance officers face
every day. In pop culture, everyone can afford to
make a mistake like a misquote. However, there’s
no wiggle room for error in case management of
suspected market fraud.
If the archive is generally inaccessible and takes X number of days to file the report
to request access, and then it takes X + Y days to get the one guy left in the building
who has some legacy R-script code on his old laptop which is the only way to play
the file, there may as well be no archive at all.
3. Accessibility is as critical as archiving the communications data. Having the record
is essential, but if you can’t get to it or you can’t play it back, what’s the point of
having it in the first place? Case managers often lament the general lack of
accessibility which is typical of most communications archiving solutions.
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Archiving makes people generally unhappy
Continuing the theme of unhappiness for compliance officers, their growing
caseloads can no longer be managed through manual processes. Case management
requires accessing all data forms, wherever they’re stored – even if they’re siloed
and have to be accessed one at a time. Storing communications data on a format
no longer compatible with modern playback solutions is your problem as the
compliance officer and financial firm – it’s not the problem of the SEC or other
regulatory agency.
Think for a moment about the floppy disc or the VHS tape. If you had to playback
some important memory like a wedding or graduation that was stored on one of
those now-extinct formats, could you do it? What hoops would you have to jump
through to find the technology that enabled playback on one device and transfer
to another format for greater accessibility on a different device? It would be
painful. And that’s the experience of just about every compliance officer out there.
Case management requires attention to detail and includes the meticulous
collection of all relevant data. The collection and reporting processes are strictly
controlled, and all compliance guidelines must be followed to limit the possibility
of dismissing the case due to a technicality. Everything begins with a detailed
review of all communications and financial transactions to search for suspicious
activity which is flagged when identified. Then, the analysts assess those data for
criminal activity. Correspondence during the investigation is monitored and must
also be accessible throughout the examination, supervision, and investigation
processes that a compliance officer executes for each case. Without access to
archived communication data, where a case may roll back five or even ten years,
the likelihood of successfully bringing the case to court declines as the timeline
grows.
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Getting it right offers great rewards
Upholding case management standards goes beyond risk-reward benefits for
successfully prosecuted cases – doing so also impacts the firm. Increased business
efficiency, greater compliance scores, reduced risk, and cost overall are reflected
back to your consumers. Defaulting to the standard practice of archiving
communication data in whatever form that the department’s lead IT expert prefers
will lead to silos, inefficiencies, and potentially a reduced ability to charge the bad
actors with illegal market activity. Trust in your firm can take decades to build, but
you can lose that trust by mishandling just one case. Reputational damage can
have dire consequences that go beyond putting the brand in peril – it has the
potential to shutter the firm.
Where does your communications archiving solution fall flat? With the first critical
step in the case management workflow being screening, no ability or an impaired
ability to pull the data for playback thwarts or essentially negates your ability to
proceed to the next five steps. These include assessment, risk evaluation, planning,
implementation, and outcome evaluation. Case management begins with access.
Without it, compliance officers are not only going to be unhappy – they’re going to
be unable to do their job – and be unable to protect their firm.