SHIELD
Data Completeness is Crucial for Your Compliance Efforts
https://www.shieldfc.com/
Data is crucial to the modern economy, particularly when it comes to financial institutions (FIs). Their ability to store, access, and analyze massive amounts of data in an effective and efficient manner greatly adds to their competitive advantages. But data collection isn’t solely about that. FIs must also ensure that they are properly collecting and storing data in order to achieve regulatory compliance. Capturing and processing data to achieve “data completeness” means that they can show every action and its associated paperwork. What’s more, this must be done in such a way that it is available at a moment’s notice, with zero margins for error. For example, the Dodd-Frank act requires a full timeline of events including trades and communications to be provided within 72 hours, for SWAP market participants.
Severe fines for non-compliance A failure to do this can result in severe fines from global regulators — ranging from tens of thousands up to millions of dollars — for not properly capturing information in an effective manner. For example, in November 2020, Santander Investment Securities agreed to pay a fine of $150,000 to the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for not capturing around 6 million emails for more than 100 employees over a five-year period.
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That was nothing compared to the enormous $4.5 million fine issued to Citigroup by a U.S. regulator at approximately the same time. The fine was related to the deletion of 2.77 million audio files that included trader conversation recordings. In both cases, the FIs denied purposeful wrongdoing. Instead, it seems likely that the problem was the result of insufficiencies and flaws with the way the archiving and associated monitoring systems were set up. The Santander incident involved a coding problem following the migration of one server to another.
Regulations vary, data requirements remain Ultimately, the reason why this data wasn’t gathered simply does not matter. Whether it’s willful wrongdoing or a bad line of code that’s been erroneously implemented, the problem comes down to a binary question: Have FIs got the correct data to report? If they have, it can be assessed by regulators. If they haven’t, there’s a big problem. That’s the case even if all of the transactions that have taken place are entirely correct and by the books. Not capturing and processing the necessary data could be the costliest mistake they ever make.
https://www.shieldfc.com/
Regulations differ depending on where you are around the world, and new regulations are added all the time. But while the fine print can change, the overall message of “save every bit of information you can” remains the same. In a world in which that includes not just trade information, but also emails, phone correspondence, messages on workplace communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, and even (increasingly) personal communication channels like WhatsApp and SMS text messages.
How do we solve that To help companies stay on top of these requirements, and have the most up-to-date information to them at all times, Shield’s platform generates a Data Completeness Report for customers at the close of each day. Shield also generates a list of all of the journaled emails made the previous day. Importantly, this comes with a summary of not just what is there, but also what isn’t — meaning gaps identified using metadata. A dashboard completeness widget can show users the daily summary report. The report runs daily after a full import of data has been completed. In doing so, Shield makes it much easier to capture and process data for regulatory purposes. Data is one of the most valuable assets a modern business has at its disposal. But don’t let “value” turn into “cost” in the form of unwanted (and unnecessary) financial penalties. By employing the right tools, FIs need never worry about not having the right data at their fingertips to meet whatever regulatory demands are thrown at them.
Website https://www.shieldfc.com/