For over just five months, the coronavirus pandemic has created unprecedented turmoil in the financial regulatory and compliance sector. While regulators have eased specific regulations in recognition of the persisting compliance and productivity challenges presented by the work-from-home set-up, this should not be taken as a free pass to undermine the law or engage in unethical conduct.
To avoid work-from-home workers from risking their company’s regulatory obligations, compliance teams are tightening their monitoring activities even more Now it’s a fact that there is an upsurge in makeshift home working set-ups that are not covered by their existing monitoring systems and controls, making it more challenging for compliance officers to track the behavior of the employees.
How Are Compliance Teams Coping with COVID 19 Pandemic?
Compliance teams are now aware of the risks presented by at-home work set-up, including the rise in corruption and insider trading.
In the EU, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has released a paper that laid out the persisting challenges, as well best practices and suggested policies that can be adopted to mitigate the financial crime risk during the global crisis. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have also issued guidance that outlines the specific frauds that businesses should watch out for.
With such heightened risks, it has become even more important for compliance officers to check in with the work-from-home employees and ensure that they “doing the right thing” as they work remotely away from their monitoring systems. The increase in monitoring and activity reporting, unfortunately, being met with a significant criticism from both compliance teams and financial professionals. They find the need to report and address compliance issues as annoying and intrusive.
In a news article from Financial News, it was shown how the virus lockdown had reignited the old tensions between the bankers and broker-dealers in the front end and compliance teams at the back office. According to one bank compliance executive, having multiple communication channels open at home is extremely difficult to sustain compared to answering questions directly on the trading floor. When asked if they face similar challenges, asset managers’ compliance teams complained that their inbox had “gone completely ridiculous” as the firm’s traders switched to emailing queries that would typically have been shouted across the office.
On the other end of the spectrum, traders and bankers say that the frequent check-in being done by their compliance teams is just a bluff to make them appear busy working from home. Such conflict in the current working environment can make the company even more exposed to compliance risks, which could be prevented only if they have invested in the right monitoring systems long before the pandemic starts.
Mobile Archiving: Key to Efficient Call Monitoring and Successful Compliance Programs
Call monitoring is an essential aspect of achieving compliance in the financial sector. Just as regulated firms are required to record text messages between their employees and clients, compliance teams need to be able to capture voice calls, the recording of which can be analyzed to identify potential financial crime within and outside their organization.
Equally important is to make sure that the mobile archiving solution can be used to capture and record mobile SMS, voice calls, and instant messages from apps such as WhatsApp regardless of the employee is using his or her device or a company-issued mobile phone or account.
By having such a solution, it will be much easier for compliance teams to cope with the pandemic as they can monitor the behavior of the employees more effectively round the clock. Such a system is effective regardless of whether they communicate with their colleagues and clients via text messaging, voice call, or WhatsApp – all of which are popular communication tools during the crisis. As a result, bankers, broker-dealers, and traders can perform their day to day tasks with the least disruption, saving the company significant money from being able to focus on their most essential functions while supporting the compliance efforts of the organization.
With TeleMessage, financial firms that are currently adopting a work from home policy due to coronavirus can effectively record text messages, monitor phone calls, as well as achieve efficient WhatsApp archiving for their remote employees. TeleMessage Mobile Archiver is a set of enterprise messaging solution that effectively addresses compliance, regulatory, and eDiscovery response requirements and which reduces risk across the financial, government, and healthcare sectors.
TeleMessage captures and records mobile content, including mobile SMS, voice calls, and WhatsApp chats and calls from corporate or BYOD mobile phones. Messages are securely and reliably retained within TeleMessage servers or forwarded to an archiving data storage vendor of your choice.
Our mobile archiving products securely record content from mobile carriers and mobile devices for a variety of ownership models (BYOD, CYOD, and employer-issued). With our multiple archiving solutions, you can always find the right tools or blend for your requirements:
TeleMessage offers cross-carrier and international mobile text & calls archiving for corporate and BYOD phones. Visit our website at www.telemessage.com to learn more about our mobile archiving products.
