[May 21, 2013]

Smarsh Survey Reveals New Phase in Evolution of Communications Oversight

Smarsh®, the leading provider of hosted archiving and compliance solutions for email and electronic communications, today released its third annual Electronic Communications Compliance Survey Report at FINRA's 2013 Annual Conference. While challenges surrounding the oversight and retention of electronic communications remain widespread, this year's study reveals that compliance professionals in financial services are more comfortable with the "new normal" of greater regulatory scrutiny, evolving communications tools and more complexity in the demands around email surveillance.

"This year's survey results illustrate how compliance is adjusting to meet the challenges presented by social media and mobile devices," said Stephen Marsh, CEO and founder of Smarsh. "As professionals move past the initial fear and uncertainty and become more familiar with the day-to-day practical issues associated with handling oversight of these channels and devices, confidence is growing in their ability to meet their compliance obligations."

For the third straight year, respondents cited new and changing regulations (67 percent), new communications channels (64 percent) and increased scrutiny/enforcement (63 percent) as their top three concerns related to electronic message compliance, yet the overall rate of concern is down. While not cited as frequently, concerns related to the procedural elements of designing and maintaining electronic communications compliance programs, such as managing multiple archiving systems, inability to produce data upon request and inability to provide evidence of supervision, saw double-digit increases this year.

The survey report addresses everal additional aspects of electronic communications compliance. Key findings include:

Social Media Adoption and Compliance

• Use of social media by financial services professionals continues to grow. LinkedIn (News - Alert) leads the way with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents now permitting its use.
• Regardless of whether they permit or prohibit use, approximately four in five respondents have policies governing use of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert). Far fewer respondents report having an archiving/supervision system in place to support those policies, although the rate did increase year-over-year.
• Respondents who allow and govern employee use of social media and other emerging forms of communication were far more confident in their ability to provide specifically requested messages within a reasonable time frame than those who ban its use were in their ability to prove prohibition is working.

Mobile Devices and BYOD

• Use of company-issued and personal devices are on the rise with iOS (Apple (News - Alert)) devices surpassing BlackBerry for the first time among respondents.
• In correlation with this increased adoption, policies governing use of these devices are also growing. However, the use of archiving/supervision systems to capture and retain the multiple forms of mobile electronic communications (i.e. email, text messages, social media) lags behind.
• As with social media and other emerging communications channels, respondents whose firms allow BYOD (bring your own device) have more confidence in the capture and archiving of business communications on these devices than "prohibitors" have in their ability to prove that their policy of prohibition is effective.

About the survey

Between January and March 2013, 284 individuals in financial services with direct compliance supervisions responsibilities participated in a 22-question survey designed to identify current trends and to share insight on policies and practices surrounding the retention, supervision and protection of electronic communications. Respondents were drawn from a wide range of firm sizes and job titles, from C-level management and chief compliance officers to compliance department staff. The full survey report is available for download at www.smarsh.com/2013compliancesurvey.

About Smarsh

Smarsh® provides hosted solutions for archiving electronic communications, including email, instant messaging, websites and social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert). Founded in 2001, Smarsh helps organizations manage and enforce flexible, secure and cost-effective compliance and records retention strategies. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com, follow @SmarshInc on Twitter or like Smarsh at www.facebook.com/SmarshInc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]