68% of financial services companies have increased investment in risk and compliance

Understanding new regulations and rules, managing operations in light of new regulations and anti-money laundering are among the top three important issues for chief compliance officers and executives at financial services companies. These results were part of a new IPC Compliance Survey of 2016 FINRA annual conference attendees conducted by IPC Systems, a leading global provider of risk and compliance solutions for the financial services community.

As compared to previous years 68 percent of financial services firm executives have increased their investment in risk and compliance, according to the IPC Compliance Survey.  Specific to technology-related communications issues, keeping pace with technology changes is the most important consideration (45 percent), followed by communications archival (26 percent) and data management (21 percent).  Approximately one-third of respondents cited cybercrime and one-third cited employee conduct among the most important issues for their company, while avoiding large fines was a concern for fewer than 10 percent of those surveyed.  Other important issues cited by respondents include managing reputational risk (29 percent), and fraud detection and prevention (27 percent).

“Our Compliance survey reaffirms that, as global financial compliance requirements continue to evolve, it is a significant challenge to understand policy and manage the data tied to communications, interactions and transactions to ensure it is securely captured, archived, and analysed,” said Lionel Grosclaude, Senior Vice President, Risk and Compliance of IPC. “Financial services companies need expertise, guidance and technology solutions that holistically addresses their information governance challenges.”

The IPC Compliance Survey was conducted in-person at the 2016 FINRA Annual Conference on May 23-24, 2016, in Washington DC. In total, 171 conference attendees were interviewed. For more information on our survey results visit http://www.ipc.com/ipc-insights/infographics/ipc-survey-reveals-biggest-compliance-challenges-facing-financial-markets.