During the beginning of the pandemic, regulations were eased to help banking and finance firms stabilise following mass disruption caused by an overnight shift to work from home. Two years later, regulators have since resumed cracking down on firms that fail to meet their compliance standards, including accurately recording and monitoring regulated employee communications. With hybrid working in mind, business leaders are reassessing their compliance risks. Without the right technology and processes in place, firms will find themselves vulnerable to reputational damage and hefty fines – particularly over the next twelve months as workplaces re-adjust yet again.

270 million compliance risks… and counting.

Since the pandemic, employees have adopted new ways of communicating. Case in point: Microsoft Teams now has 270 million active users globally, making it one of the most popular unified communications platforms in the world. But while Teams’ multi-modal communications (e.g. voice, video, chat and more) affords many benefits, it also introduces new complexities for firms.

Under existing regulations, all these communications still need to be recorded – something that most legacy compliance recording solutions simply aren’t equipped to do. And yet, surprisingly, unified communications platforms do not come with built-in recording and storage systems that meet the rigorous requirements of compliance recording. As a result, firms have been left scrambling for technological and process-based solutions.

Compliance recording must-haves in a hybrid world.

Firms rolling out unified communications tools, like Microsoft Teams, to regulated employees need to be mindful of staying in compliance with regulations around recording, archiving, and retaining communications. In a recent report, we identified ten compliance recording must-haves for firms navigating these tough waters. To summarize, below are the three necessities of a compliance recording solution for Microsoft Teams that should not be overlooked.

One Solution for All Communication Platforms and Modalities

Firms need one system to record and manage all communications that adapts to all the different ways your regulated employees communicate, whether they’re using unified communications platforms (like Teams, Symphony and Cisco Webex), IPC Unigy or other turrets, Cloud9, mobile phones, or PBX (desktop phones).

Additionally, a compliance recording solution should ensure seamless recording, archiving, and retention of regulated employee communications (across voice, video, chat, screen sharing, document sharing and more), irrespective of where employees are working or the devices/modalities they’re using to communicate.

With one solution for every compliance recording need, your firm can keep overhead costs low and confidently comply with all global regulations around record-keeping, retention and trade reconstruction.

Integrated Compliance Assurance and Capture in a Single Platform

When choosing a compliance recording solution, firms should look to a communication recording and compliance assurance solution that provides complete lifecycle management of data. This reduces compliance risk and saves your firm time by automating processes around compliance assurance and reporting, as well as responding to regulatory requests.

Additionally, a solution with automated recording checks and real-time reconciliation helps your firm ensure and prove that all trade conversations are being captured and retained as required by global regulations. Automated bulk call extraction capability can quickly identify, locate and download complete conversations (1 million+ calls per day) for audits, investigations, trade reconstructions, and business intelligence.

Cloud-Ready: Migrate at Your Own Pace

As compliance costs grow and regulated organizations cope with the added complexities of remote work and new communication modalities, financial services firms are turning to the Cloud in growing numbers to power their digital transformation.

Firms need a solution built on a modern, cloud-ready, microservice architecture design that provides an enterprise-grade, secure and proven foundation for multinational firms to scale their recording and compliance assurance capabilities quickly, cost effectively and efficiently.

With an all-in-one compliance recording solution, you can migrate to the Cloud at your own pace. Having a solution that can be deployed in any configuration to meet your firm’s unique needs is key – whether that’s as an on-premise or hybrid Cloud solution, in your own private Cloud, or as a pure SaaS (Software as a Service) solution for added versatility and lower TCO.

Compliance Recording Technology has you covered.

As businesses adapt their operating models to meet the new digital expectations of employees and customers, a re-assessment of compliance risks is needed. The phenomenal growth in usage numbers of unified communications platforms such as Microsoft Teams – which offer the benefits of improved productivity, digital transformation, and real-time collaboration – means that businesses must now have recording technologies to ensure complete compliance assurance. Yet, these recording technologies cannot be passive. Instead, they must be able to adapt to communications technology trends, business disruption, and regulatory changes as they happen. In addition, they must help regulated employees stay compliant no matter the situation. If not, businesses may find themselves in hot water in years to come.