July 14, 2023
2018 may well go down as the year where new regulatory compliance effected the management of business communications across every industry.
While every customer facing operation appeared to be scrambling to get their long established customer base to ‘opt-in’ to further marketing communications ahead of the May 25th GDPR deadline, the Financial Services industry also has the additional overhead of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) which came into force on January 3rd 2018.
MiFID II is an EU legislation that regulates firms providing financial services to clients such as stockbrokers, venture capitalists, Independent Financial Advisors (IFA) and many others.
One of the main operational implications of MiFID II is the requirement for firms to perform call recording for all transaction related communications, regardless of whether or not the interaction ultimately leads to a trade taking place.
In addition, firms must advise clients that their calls are being recorded, securely store recordings for a minimum of 5 years, and be able to provide clients with their recordings upon request.
We do not intend to cover the finer details here of when call recording is mandatory, as this can be found in the final MiFID II policy statement from the FCA.
What we want to consider are the practicalities regarding the implementation of call recording.
For many financial services organisations compliance to MiFID II presents the perfect timing for a move to a cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) platform. Of the many benefits this can bring it is the in-built call recording offered by many UC platforms that can simplify the path to MiFID II compliance. Especially important is the ability to record conversations across all devices and end points which in itself is a significant challenge due to the multitude of devices being used today to conduct business communications.
The facility to record calls may not exist within the telephone systems of many smaller firms and those currently operating with an on-premise PBX system will know that traditional call recording systems are server-based requiring on site hardware installation, software licences and in-house expertise to manage and maintain the system.
Add to this the 5+ year recording retention requirement and we now have an on-premise data storage capacity issue before we even start to think about data security, or how we can capture calls from remote or home workers. The recording of calls over mobile services can be difficult to administer through SIM-based applications and in-network solutions from the major carriers and independent solution providers are often expensive.
Moving to a cloud-based UC platform can help to solve these compliance issues and at the same time revolutionise business communications efficiency both internally and externally. Below are some of the key benefits that a cloud-based UC platform can bring:
While every customer facing operation appeared to be scrambling to get their long established customer base to ‘opt-in’ to further marketing communications ahead of the May 25th GDPR deadline, the Financial Services industry also has the additional overhead of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) which came into force on January 3rd 2018.
MiFID II is an EU legislation that regulates firms providing financial services to clients such as stockbrokers, venture capitalists, Independent Financial Advisors (IFA) and many others.
One of the main operational implications of MiFID II is the requirement for firms to perform call recording for all transaction related communications, regardless of whether or not the interaction ultimately leads to a trade taking place.
In addition, firms must advise clients that their calls are being recorded, securely store recordings for a minimum of 5 years, and be able to provide clients with their recordings upon request.
We do not intend to cover the finer details here of when call recording is mandatory, as this can be found in the final MiFID II policy statement from the FCA.
What we want to consider are the practicalities regarding the implementation of call recording.
For many financial services organisations compliance to MiFID II presents the perfect timing for a move to a cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) platform. Of the many benefits this can bring it is the in-built call recording offered by many UC platforms that can simplify the path to MiFID II compliance. Especially important is the ability to record conversations across all devices and end points which in itself is a significant challenge due to the multitude of devices being used today to conduct business communications.
The facility to record calls may not exist within the telephone systems of many smaller firms and those currently operating with an on-premise PBX system will know that traditional call recording systems are server-based requiring on site hardware installation, software licences and in-house expertise to manage and maintain the system.
Add to this the 5+ year recording retention requirement and we now have an on-premise data storage capacity issue before we even start to think about data security, or how we can capture calls from remote or home workers. The recording of calls over mobile services can be difficult to administer through SIM-based applications and in-network solutions from the major carriers and independent solution providers are often expensive.
Moving to a cloud-based UC platform can help to solve these compliance issues and at the same time revolutionise business communications efficiency both internally and externally. Below are some of the key benefits that a cloud-based UC platform can bring:
Affordability
– No high up-front CAPEX costs, instead a flexible subscription based platform that scales with you as your business grows
Simplicity
– A cloud-based platform removes the complex rollout of on-premise systems with an on-demand service that constantly evolves to provide the latest in communications technologies
Security
– Today’s best cloud-based voice recording solutions should encrypt data in transit and then organise, index and hold it in a highly secure online data store that will provide infinite capacity to meet your retention requirements. Access to recorded information should then be provided through a secure online portal.
Accessibility
– A good UC platform should also enable calls made by employees working from home or remotely to be recorded both from their personal mobiles or VoIP lines across multiple devices. If you are looking to store call recordings on your own storage or integrate them within a CRM or other application, selecting a UC platform providing API’s to transfer audio files securely from cloud storage will simplify this process.
At ECaaS we work with our clients to understand their business communication requirements and then match these to a best-of-breed UC solution using our knowledge of the current vendor landscape.
If you would like to learn more about meeting MiFID II call recording compliance through a cloud based UC platform then please get in touch with us for an informal chat.
At ECaaS we work with our clients to understand their business communication requirements and then match these to a best-of-breed UC solution using our knowledge of the current vendor landscape.
If you would like to learn more about meeting MiFID II call recording compliance through a cloud based UC platform then please get in touch with us for an informal chat.