April 21, 2017
On 3rd January 2018, the Market in Financial Instruments Directive MiFID II is effective right across the EU and similar rules are fully expected to stay in place once the UK leaves the European Union.
For lots of businesses the regulations seem pretty scary as they require all financial employees who are directly involved in trading to record their mobile, landline and SMS communications, the new MiFID legislation, was due to extend this to every size of business which covered financial transactions.
However, the FCA has just announced a U-turn on these rules for phone advisors and will now allow written notes to cover conversations.
In an update of the proposed phone-recording rules the regulator said a full taping obligation for advisers "may not always be appropriate" due to the business model of some firms. The FCA will now allow advisers to comply by either taping all "relevant" phone conversations or taking down written notes on those conversations.
But how do you know which calls are relevant?
That may seem like a get out of jail card, but it throws up a few dilemmas for financial businesses who must still be MiFiD II compliant regardless of the route they choose.
Dilemma One - How do you decide which calls are relevant?
One of the main reasons the new MiFID II legislation is being enacted is that most disputes around financial services come from unrecorded calls and messages where there is little or no evidence to present to resolve issues at a later point.
Once the call is on motion how can you begin recording the conversation? Sure you could ask the person to hold while you set recording systems going, or seek a pause while you grab a pen. But that’s hardly efficient and won’t be possible all the time.
Dilemma Two – If you take notes how do you capture accurate details?
The details of any conversations are meant to be accurate to help problem resolutions further down the line. This is designed to protect both parties in the event of a dispute. With the best will in the world, it’s almost impossible to have a perfect recollection of all points raised in a call, particularly one which may involve complicated financial discussions.
Even if you can remember them getting those details down in a written form which captures all the salient points which will stand up to later scrutiny it a very tall order both in time and energy.
Recording every call is actually the easiest solution
As we said for smaller financial businesses the MiFID II legislation seems like a huge insurmountable problem. How on earth can businesses of that size be expected to record every mobile, landline and SMS communication as well as all the other paper work and emails etc?
The need to record all your company landline and mobile calls sounds like a huge undertaking, involving new technology, support, training and costs. Luckily, it’s pretty straight forward for Simetric to help you.
Our Mobile-X solution converges Mobile and Fixed numbers giving them one central point which handles all the calls. As part of this we have several frictionless options for handling call recording which are fully compliant with MiFID II from the outset.
Cloud App - Call Recording Cloud is our easy to use cloud service, with secure on-network recording, and always-on instant playback of all your calls. This system records every single mobile or fixed line call and stores them in the cloud for retrieval when you need it making this a great belt and braces option for call recording.
Enterprise Insight - Call Recording Insight is our Enterprise grade recording solution for businesses who really need to delve into their recordings. Insight has powerful features which enables organisations to unleash the big data held in their calls, including search, automated workflows and analytics.
Both of these solutions “just work” there’s no need for staff to have special equipment, additional training on how to use the systems or even have to remember to set call to record – it’s pretty much fool proof.
There’s no need to change numbers to be MiFID II compliant
To ensure Simetric’s call recording systems work properly and comply with MiFID II regulations we need to handle all your calls however, that doesn’t mean that you’ll have to change the numbers you already have, because we can simply port them over.
Another advantage of doing that is that, as well as having full control of all your call recordings, you’ll also have control of your call billing too because we will handle both mobile and fixed call charges for you.