Bound by tightening global regulations related to communications compliance, banks need to look for a communication compliance platform that ensures compliance with all global regulations around record keeping and retention. 

Paul Cottee, Director of Global Markets Compliance at NICE, said: “If we go back to the mid-2000s, regulators were already starting to clearly indicate which way the wind was blowing. 

“Then post-Global Financial Crisis, legislation such as MAR and Dodd-Frank had clear provisions which require that any communication leading up to a transaction – such as a telephone conversation or electronic communication – needs to be recorded and retained. 

“Major regulators around the world have adopted similar sorts of provisions, or tightened regulations already in place; in short, the requirement to properly record and retain regulated employee conversations is not new.”  

Despite this, some major banks have recently been subject to large fines for breaches of these compliance laws.  

In December last year, a major tier-1 institution paid fines totalling $200 million for the unauthorised use of personal phones. Then in September 2022, another eleven global firms have been hit with fines ranging from $16 million to $225 million for similar failings – namely executives using unrecorded channels (usually banned by their employers) for business communications falling within the scope of the recording requirements, over a period of several years.  

Why are Banks so Unprepared?  

The question begs, why are major banks, which have known about these regulations for a long time, regularly breaching compliance regulations?  

One explanation for recent infractions is that the rapid shift to working from home caused by the pandemic made it harder for workers to access approved communication channels, and equally difficult for banks to provide work phones for all their employees quickly. In recognition of this, some regulators temporarily relaxed some recording requirements, but this forbearance was limited in time and has generally long since been wound back. 

Working behaviours have also changed over the past few years. Face-to-face meetings have been, to a large extent, augmented (if not replaced) by video conferencing platforms and other traditionally unregulated communication channels.  

Additionally, (with some exceptions) the fines to date generally do not suggest widespread deliberate conspiracies manufactured to intentionally hide business communications from employers or regulators. 

On the contrary, the SEC makes clear that in several recent investigations, numerous bank employees have co-operatively provided communications from non-approved and unrecorded channels on their personal devices (which is one way this problem came to light). Because of this, it appears that most in-scope staff – across all levels of seniority – were simply careless or didn’t realise there was a problem.  

While compliance solutions often come with a high price tag, this price is relatively small in comparison to these fines.  

Cottee explains the value of a compliance solution: “If you’re driving up the motorway, the police are not going to stop you and say, ‘You are travelling one mile an hour below the speed limit, so that’s good.’ In the same way, you won’t know if you have dodged a compliance fine. It is very difficult to prove a negative. You can bet your life, however, that if you don’t have these things in place and something does blow up, it will not be a particularly good outcome.”  

The NICE Compliancentral Platform 

This is precisely where Compliancentral comes in. Compliancentral provides the industry’s first end-to-end platform to record and manage all communications as well as detect all forms of misconduct from that communications data, as well as trade and other behavioral data. It adapts to all of the different ways your regulated employees communicate, whether they’re using unified communications platforms (like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Cisco Webex), IPC Unigy or other turrets, Cloud9, mobile phones or PBX (desktop phones). 

Additionally, Compliancentral ensures seamless recording, archiving and retention of regulated employee communications, irrespective of where employees are working or the devices/modalities they’re using to communicate. With one platform for every compliance recording need, your firm can keep overhead costs low and confidently comply with all global regulations around record keeping and retention. 

Apart from reducing regulatory risks, deploying Compliancentral also removes maintenance obstacles and saves up to 65% in costs, while automating the data management lifecycle and providing open APIs to make data more accessible.  

Cottee explains a key differentiator of Compliancentral: “I think part of the value proposition for Compliancentral is that we cover unified communications. 

“It doesn’t just cover voice, emails, and other traditional communication modalities. It covers you and me, or ten people, having a conversation on Zoom or Microsoft Teams – across chat, screen share, voice, video, document sharing, and more. 

“Now firms can capture and record all of these new forms of communications, and seamlessly integrate them into their monitoring & surveillance programmes to detect misconduct.” 

If you are interested in finding out more about NICE’s Compliancentral compliance solution, you can visit NICE’s website here. 



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