Improve Compliance in a Multi-Channel World
The pandemic has reshaped business in myriad ways, none so much as how people communicate. In a few months, employees at financial institutions (FI) adopted multichannel electronic communications—including audio (phone), video, SMS/texting, and messaging—in what otherwise might have taken a decade. Not surprisingly, this rapid rollout has stressed the compliance groups at many FIs, which are required to monitor and archive internal communications and those with customers—and generate reports for regulators.
During the height of the pandemic, regulators tacitly gave some compliance leeway to FIs. After all, employees were suddenly working remotely and they had to quickly adapt and find ways to communicate with coworkers and their customers. But as these practices have become quickly entrenched, regulators are taking a closer look and reasserting compliance and monitoring requirements. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stated that new communication tools are breeding grounds for scams and other misbehavior, 1 and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a report that stressed the much greater risk of misconduct associated with remote or home working.
Indeed, the financial services industry got a real wake-up call last year when the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) together fined JPMorgan Chase Securities $200 million after staff used personal chats for company business. According to the SEC, employees in the securities division of JPMC avoided oversight by discussing company business on their personal devices via text messages, personal email accounts, and messaging serviceWhatsApp.
In the wake of greater regulatory scrutiny, some institutions initially responded by locking down communications; they thought they had to curtail communication tools to minimize compliance risk. According to Gartner, 83% of financial services firms are restricting the use of features in collaboration tools.3 The trouble is that it’s not just employees who have gotten used to these tools—customers have, too. Customers expect to communicate anytime, anywhere, on any device. Not allowing employees to communicate with customers the way those customers want frustrates everyone.
Included in this Contents
- Compliance and Multichannel Communication
- The Crawl, Walk, Run Approach
- Begin to Walk and Improve Collaboration
- Case Study: Walker Crips Customizes RingCentral
- Starting to Run and Go on Offense
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