Maintaining Messaging Compliance (Electronic Communications)

Failures in messaging compliance can be costly. In the fall of 2022, Firms were fined over $1.1 Billion for record-keeping failures related to electronic communications.

It can be stressful when assessing one’s policies and procedures, as electronic communication is so prevalent in the industry.  It can be difficult to know how to make a distinction between personal and private without forcing employees to use different devices.

Today, we provide some key reminders when handling electronic communication compliance.

4 Key Reminders

  1. Maintain awareness of on-going regulations.
    • Stay up to date on SEC charges, risk alerts, and finalized rules.
    • Ensure your compliance team has support.
  2. Select the proper communication recordkeeping program.
    • The program should accurately capture all electronic communication through any medium, be it email, messaging apps, social media messaging, etc.
    • The program should allow compliance employees to easily search through the database based off key phrases.
    • For efficiency, some programs will automatically search electronic communication and place it into a que for easy review.
  3. Ensure employees are properly trained.
    • The communication policies at your Firm should be clear and consistently enforced.
    • Employees should understand their role in protecting both themselves and the Firm.
  4. Consider using complianceprofessionals to help aid your process.
    • Compliance professionals have deep industry insight, maintain a constant awareness of ongoing regulation, and provide the experience of helping other Firms that are all trying to maintain compliance.
    • A third-party analysis of supervisory policies and procedures can help discover weaknesses and potential compliance failures.

Vigilant’s Conclusion

Maintaining compliance with electronic communications can be a tedious task. It can also be frustrating considering it is not directly revenue generating and seemingly takes a lot of time.

However, proper compliance will help defend your Firm against costly regulatory fines that could devastate a business.

With the proper resources and effort, and help from dedicated compliance professionals, Firms can create recordkeeping practices that are both compliant and resource efficient.

Reach out to us for any support you may need.