Communications Archiving Solutions – Do Wishes Come True?

That all depends on who you ask. If you’re looking for a fairy godmother, look no further. Of course, Shield doesn’t look like your typical fairy godmother but, as a leading RegTech solution, Shield does make wishes come true. At least as far as communications archiving solutions go. Let’s learn more.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running polls on social media inquiring what compliance officers want from their RegTech communications archiving solutions. It all started with a simple question, “Are you happy with your current communications archiving solution?” The answer was a resounding, “No!” So, we’ve been sharing our Communications Archiving Happiness series of blogs to learn a little more about what people want concerning case management and surveillance features. Today’s blog in the series focuses on wish lists.

First, start with WHY

Simon Sinek has made that tagline the foundation of his career and the seed for a global enterprise. But it makes sense to do so as it’s a great place to start. Why do compliance officers want and need communications archiving solutions, and why do they want features that they can’t seem to find?

Like the ability to capture all forms of communication – and then be able to retain and retrieve them all without needing to invest in a whole new technology stack to do so. Of course, there’s also the matter of exporting. The legal department needs archived communications data pretty much as soon as they request it. Having tried, “Give us a few weeks. We need to invest in some other technology to access, search, and analyze it,” as a response, trust us, it doesn’t work! The right data communications archiving solution enables early case assessments so that your firm can get the jump on e-discovery before legal action begins.?

Future-proofing is an important element here that is often associated with flexibility as a feature. Then there’s the matter of being comprehensive. Do you include WhatsApp as an e-comms channel for your daily archiving? What about Teams?, Slack, and every other new tool that your brokers and financial customers seem to take a liking to? Your data archiving solution not only needs to be complete, but it needs to flex as new modes of e-comms are added into the rotation of tools through which members of your firm work. Bottom line, you need a solution that meets today’s data storage requirements and future ones which could include a combination of on-premise capture, cloud capture, and single- plus multi-tenant archive environments in multiple formats. It’s all about mitigating risk and enabling e-discovery across siloed information.?

Security ranks up there near the top as a feature. Operational controls, security, and permissions accessibility with management require stringent protocols and adherence to them. Some small financial firms employ third-party services for compliance support. In these cases, the IT department needs an archiving solution that offers data security, governance, data recovery, and restoration, coupled with seamless e-discovery to enable regulatory compliance. When the IT department figures out how to migrate large data sets into the archives, everyone in the company cheers the increase in server speed that results.?

Is there a fairy godmother?

Yes! And there are two parables here that echo the moral of this story. One, be careful what you say because your words can come back and haunt you. We’re talking to you, market fraudster – we can search every e-Comms channel, interpret emoji-speak, infer intent, and capture everything that you say. And yes, we can and will use your words against you in future litigation.?

The second parable is, be careful what you wish for. In this case, you just might get it. Based on our data communications archiving poll last month, we learned about several features that you were wishing for. Now that you have them all, are you going to use them?

Of the people polled, the majority (41%) want to change their legacy tech. Sure, it made sense back in time when there were no other options available, and the in-house team did their best to create a proprietary system. But the world has changed since then. Maintaining legacy software is tedious and expensive. Besides, doing so is not the original purpose intended for the financial firm’s IT department. They’ve (reluctantly) inherited it and they’re working hard to keep up with it, but it’s showing its age. We can help.

Response times are notoriously poor. No surprise that 24% of you who answered our poll want to see faster response times in your data communications archiving solution. When it’s done right, you can offload the day’s transactions in a daily archiving routine to keep server speeds running optimally. In contrast, when archiving isn’t part of the daily routine, most search solutions are forced to slog their way through extraneous data that bogs down the search versus enabling it. You may as well head to the café (or your kitchen) to pick up another iced latte or brew another pot of tea – you’ve got some time before the search results are returned.

The next two wish list features came in at a tie: 18% of you wanted better integration tools to enable greater connectivity to the systems that you were already using. At the end of the day, a lack of connectivity to a popular system that your traders want to use also holds back the business. Ironically, if your archive can’t connect to everything you need, then you are forced to purchase a different archiving platform…. Part of the problem with the latter issue is that legacy solutions are notoriously difficult and costly to maintain, which pulls resources away from innovative, new projects and often requires third-party support to “keep the lights on.” That tends to add tremendous costs to the financial burden.?

As for as costs go, of course, everyone wants a deal. But here’s where we return to what the fairy godmother said, “Be careful what you wish for.” The cheapest data communications archiving solution may sound like a deal, but you have to evaluate for yourself if it really is a deal. An advertised price may not be the price that you actually pay for it. It’s like how airlines are pricing their flights now – the advertised price looks compelling and entices you to think about taking a vacation. And then you have to add your seat cost – for each leg of your trip. Plus, the overhead cabin storage fee. And the fuel fee. Don’t forget about the airport taxes, and so on …

Here at Shield, we can’t grant all your wishes, but we’ve certainly got you covered when it comes to making your wishes come true for a dreamy, proven, data communications archiving solution.