How to Ensure Compliance Goes Beyond Call Accounting
January 26, 2015
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Compliance is a big deal in the banking world. Not only are financial institutions concerned with public opinion, they also want to be sure they can keep their doors open. Still, banks tend to struggle in an age of technology, calling accounting, digital storage and social media. How do decision makers know when to draw the line and where it’s OK to get creative?
A blog posted recently by call accounting solution provider, ISI (News - Alert) examined what’s happening in the current industry and how scandals are still a problem. One area of challenge centers on archiving instant messages for traders. Current regulations dictate that banks archive these messages in “write-once, read many” storage so that all interactions are easily monitored and analyzed without tampering.
Like call accounting, this process works by allowing users to sift through the instant messages to identify key phrases. Without the right controls in place, however, agents can be privy to a list of keywords or phrases that are flagged and monitored. As a result, they are able to develop a code to avoid detection. For those who are operating with proper intent, it’s simply not productive to filter through messages and hunt for certain terms and a dynamic solution to ensure compliance is needed.
To get the most out of any solution designed to support compliance, it must work in tandem with other solutions for voice and video. In doing so, you’re ensuring that all interactions are not only archived appropriately, but also searchable. This brings accountability to a higher level and makes it more difficult for agents to bypass. Supervisors can easily adjust activities and instant messages are monitored in real-time, offering the opportunity to stop conversations whenever necessary.
When integrated with a speech analytics solution, supervisors can easily evaluate each step of the agent’s interaction. They can apply grades and scores to offer insight into instances and detect if a compliance breach is on the horizon. Even if a call were to escalate from a voice call to a video conversation or instant message, it can still be traced throughout the system. This ensures compliance is a priority at each stage of the interaction.
At the end of the day, financial institutes are under intense scrutiny and for good reason. With the right tools in place, it makes it a little harder to agents or others with less than pure intentions to upset standard practices that put everyone at risk.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi