Compliance Insights – Electronic Communication Surveillance – Consequences of Non-Compliance and Future Requirements
Social Bonds : A significant financing opportunity amid the pandemic
Executive summary
The insight document outlines the challenges facing the financial services sector in managing robust electronic communication surveillance and monitoring programme
Introduction/ Overview
The use of unapproved media, mainly WhatsApp and text messages, for business communications has increased significantly in the post-pandemic world, leading to increased breaches/violations of electronic communication policy. Regulators now are stepping on the gas to ensure that firms revisit their compliance policies and procedures related to electronic communication for business use and to abstain from future breach of their record-keeping policies.
Key developments/ differences/ Challenges
Few challenges faced by financial service providers these days are:
Training and guiding employees towards adhering to the policies and culture of compliance
Identifying the effective technology to monitor the behavior and activities of employees specially written communication
Lack of skilled resources to conduct the reviews
Future Outlook
Firms first need to identify all methods being used to communicate with external and internal stakeholders and ensure that all these methods are approved.
They also need to ensure they have comprehensive oversight policies in place for all methods of electronic communication, particularly via social media and mobile devices.
They should increase the frequency of review, due to the increased use of electronic communication. Firms that typically conduct quarterly or monthly reviews could look at moving to semi-weekly or weekly reviews, so they could detect inappropriate communication sooner.
Conclusion/ Wholesome approach
Each firm has compliance gaps and inconsistencies in its governing system, but it is the responsibility of the firm and its employees to fill those gaps and build a strong system through policies, procedures, training and deploying the right tools and review framework. They should have systems in place to detect breaches and identify bad behaviour without delay.
Compliance consultants will have specific roles going forward, and firms should use them to strengthen their surveillance programmes.
They should also start focusing on thinking out of the box, deploy forensic practices and test new technological tools to refine their searches and identify bad actors.
Rapid technological development and a tech-savvy generation mean that firms would need to keep abreast of technological advancement.
Acuity’s Value proposition
We help companies conduct a thorough review of electronic communication in this challenging environment. Our team of expert’s reviews activities that concern our clients the most, and escalates potential issues for review and resolution. Our flexible engagement model enables clients to work with us in a temporary or ongoing capacity specifically tailored to their needs.
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