How to find a way out of the Call Recording Jungle

Published On : 09/09/2019

Richard Mill

The author is Managing Director of Business Systems (UK) Ltd, a specialist for 30 years in providing call recording and workforce optimisation solutions for investment banks, city trading floors and insurance companies

Many financial companies have created voice recording mayhem for themselves by surrounding themselves with multiple voice recording solutions, but there is a way out of the software jungle explains Richard Mill from Business Systems

Voice recording is a critical core compliance for financial services companies and should be straightforward – yet many companies have muddied the waters by acquiring different voice recording systems over time in different regions. These are often outmoded and incompatible, which is creating a real dilemma in terms of management, regulatory compliance,costs and operational efficiencies.

The ability to retrieve voice recordings quickly and efficiently is essential if there is an audit, a compliance request or a customer dispute for example. In spite of the implications, many financial services companies have made it difficult for themselves by allowing departments to use multiple voice recording software solutions, resulting indisparate data silos across the organisation. In addition, they have often failed to consider scalability, storage and the huge impact a disruption in service could have on their business short and long term.

Today unification of both live and achieved call recordings is essential in achieving compliance and operational efficiency, and despite the disparate technology that has proliferated, help is at hand through the use of sophisticated federating software providing uniformity of control and access across the estate/enterprise.

Because financial services companies will have initially implemented recording systems that are “bullet proof”, in other words,the systems are reliable, the data cannot be tampered with and the integrity remains unchallenged so it is admissible in court. They also need to ensure that the federating process they deploy provides secure and on-going access and management of the dataset with a replay and management solution that has multi-vendor functionality, meaning it can pull the metadata from the host recording systems and secure it to provide easy access to users via a centralised portal.

Your federating process must also ensure you remain compliant with regulations and directions going forward, so that you are in control over how your employees are communicating with your customers.

Customer business cases

Compliance will continue to be a huge challenge for financial services institutions, which is why the forward thinking firms are dealing with their voice recording complexity now – finding their way out of the jungle, aware that as more channels come on board the problem will only escalate.

Take the example of a US bank which had deployed systems across the EU. The systems had reached end of life and were out of support from the vendor. There was also a far greater dilemma for the bank as Microsoft Windows Server 2003 was also EOL and the bank had a mandate to remove it from their infrastructure.

The bank did not want trader call data stuck in its legacy systems, but it was paramount the recordings were stored and accessible for the complete retention period.

Using an agnostic central portal that could locate and replay all data from different systems and locations on-premise and in the cloud, all the banks calls were easily migrated to a different location and played back and managed via the new portal. It also enabled the bank to shed calls past the official retention date, allowing it to delete over 30% of cache, which significantly cut storage costs.

Extracting calls for deeper analysis

Another example is a French investment bank which had deployed ten live recorders across a large estate. It wanted to extract all voice recordings into an analytics application. It needed an automated solution that would do this quickly because they were working to very tight deadlines.

A centralised interface solution allowed the customer to extract the files from multiple call recording systems. If the bank wishes to deploy a different analytics platform in the future the recordings can be effortlessly provided to a new platform.

Finally, a financial institution needed to address the emergence of multiple channels and voice recording platforms such as Skype for Business. It opted for a centralised portal encapsulating all legacy calls, while providing a continuous ingest of all live calls. The company was able to produce one easy-to-use interface and associated dashboards, which allowed compliance and legal teams to ‘self-service’, all while avoiding legacy support costs.

These are just some of the ways that the finance industry has utilised an agnostic central voice data portal, enabling a flexible recording architecture that will support companies as new digital communications channels expand.

Wanda Rich

Wanda Rich has been the Editor-in-Chief of Global Banking & Finance Review since 2011, playing a pivotal role in shaping the publication’s content and direction. Under her leadership, the magazine has expanded its global reach and established itself as a trusted source of information and analysis across various financial sectors. She is known for conducting exclusive interviews with industry leaders and oversees the Global Banking & Finance Awards, which recognize innovation and leadership in finance. In addition to Global Banking & Finance Review, Wanda also serves as editor for numerous other platforms, including Asset Digest, Biz Dispatch, Blockchain Tribune, Business Express, Brands Journal, Companies Digest, Economy Standard, Entrepreneur Tribune, Finance Digest, Fintech Herald, Global Islamic Finance Magazine, International Releases, Online World News, Luxury Adviser, Palmbay Herald, Startup Observer, Technology Dispatch, Trading Herald, and Wealth Tribune.