Call Accounting Featured Article

Report Discusses Compliance Around the World

  By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

A new Thomson Reuters (News - Alert) report discusses the divergent stances around the world relative to compliance. It notes that major regulations are going into effect this year in the European Union. Meanwhile, the Special Report on the State of Regulatory Reform notes, there’s deregulation in the U.S.

Last month, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II officially took hold. It makes it mandatory to record all conversations related to financial transactions on both personal- and company-owned mobile devices. It also requires those affected to hold on to those records for five years. MiFID II applies to financial services entities that do business in the European Union. So, its reach goes beyond just organizations within the EU.

“Legislation in many countries and states mandate call recording for banks, insurance companies, trading houses and other financial institutions,” says ISI Telemanagement Solutions. “In the banking world, our customers barely touch the recording system; it silently does its work and is used to settle special cases. Reliability of the solution is crucial to ensure all calls are available when needed. Our largest deployed banking system steadily records 20,000 calls per day, and provides online search capabilities for 5 years of historical call records and media.”

And in May, the General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect in the EU. The goal of GDPR is to standardize data protection regulations across the EU.

“Cited as an even bigger compliance challenge than MiFID II by some politicians, GDPR is arguably the biggest overhaul of data protection rules in two decades,” according to the report reference above. “Thomson Reuters forecasts that the penalties for non-compliance will likely be severe.”

However, while the EU is tightening regulations on business in an effort to protect individuals and make businesses more accountable, the U.S. is doing just the opposite, the report notes. The goal, in that case, Republicans say, is to free U.S. businesses to dedicate their resources to growing their organizations and creating jobs. Of course, some see this as an effort to give businesses more control at the expense of people and the environment.

“In the U.S., President Trump is working to reshape the post-crisis regulatory landscape put in place by the Dodd Frank Act, even as Congress is gridlocked,” said Alexander Robson, editor in chief of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence in London. “His financial agencies are implementing the president's deregulatory agenda with an ambitious strategy that includes pressuring budgets, halting rules in the pipeline, revised enforcement policies, and other bureaucratic tools.

“As if that wasn’t enough,” added Robson, “fintech is developing at a speed that demands attention, while regulators also have to contend with the spread of cryptocurrencies and their associated risks.”

That said, Morrison Foerster discusses recently proposed U.S. legislation relating to foreign investment. And U.S. lawmakers have reportedly told all U.S. companies to cut their ties with Huawei, a Chinese network infrastructure and endpoint provider.