CellTrust Blog

Archiving made easy: Staying compliant across all modes of communication

One of the concerns that comes along with opening up various lines of communication between financial advisors and clients is, “How does it remain compliant?” With the plethora of communication options now available, monitoring and archiving everything is seemingly an impossible task. Even offering just one option – like SMS messaging – can reveal a number of compliance burdens that a Chief Compliance Officer might be wary of.

When offering a platform like CellTrust’s SL2 system that allows an advisor to use their own device to carry out personal and business calls and text messages, compliance concerns are at the top of our mind, just like the software itself. But technology integrations play a major part in ensuring that this advancement in communication does not create compliance headaches.

Depending on which archiving solution an RIA or broker-dealer uses, one of the methods below will ensure that all communications are archived and compliance regulations are adhered to.

  1. Communications for all devices in the company are recorded, batch processed at the end of the day and sent to a secure site for the archiving partner to retrieve and store.
  2. A journal file (CSV, etc.) is sent through a customized link at the end of the day to an archiving solution.
  3. A direct feed to an archiving solution allows for real-time archiving of communications.
  4. If no archiving solution is used for communications outside of email, an email with all of the day’s communication can be sent to the CCO, and that will be archived in the email archiving solution.
    1. This information can also be sent on a client-segregated basis so daily communications between specific clients and their advisor can be pulled into their CRM record and stored.

For CCOs already involved in archiving other digital communications, these methods should sound familiar. In partnering with archiving platforms such as Global Relay, Micro Focus, Smarsh and ZL Technologies, CellTrust’s platform can be customized for solo-owner RIAs all the way up to current customers like Merrill Lynch. CellTrust is also aware that there are other archiving solutions that advisors use, and we are open to creating partnerships with them should there be demand within our customer base.

At this point, it should be clear that for most of these methods there is no additional compliance burden to CCOs when it comes to the daily backup of communications. The archiving of voice and SMS communications can happen in the same way that email is archived. The only step a CCO (and/or their team) should be doing is searching these communications for flagged keywords that have been specified by the company.

For CCOs concerned about how much extra work this will require of them in offering voice and text communications from advisor to clients, the answer is “almost none.”

Curious to see how this would work in your situation? Find out more: https://www.celltrust.com/products/celltrust-sl2/

Request a demo or Free Trial here: http://www.celltrust.com/contact-us/#form