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April 27, 2023

Solutions you can bank on: Recording Insights for the financial sector—ASC Technologies offers regulation-compliant documentation in Microsoft Teams

Investment consultations are recorded as a matter of course, as stipulated by finance laws and policy regulations such as MiFID II in Europe, the FCA rules in the UK, and the Dodd-Frank Act in the US. This means that around the world, millions of consultation recordings have to be stored, secured, and analyzed in compliance with legal provisions—otherwise, financial institutions could receive hefty fines or even lose their banking license. For online consultations that take place on Microsoft Teams, ASC Technologies AG developed its Recording Insights digital solution. Where once only spot checks were possible, an artificial intelligence (AI) named the Compliance Policy Engine makes it possible to evaluate 100 percent of recordings, simplifying compliance with legal requirements. As an expert in compliance recording for highly regulated sectors, ASC relies on Azure Cognitive Services and integration into the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services.

ASC Technologies AG

The challenge: Ensuring legal compliance when recording customer communications

Whenever financial consultants propose investment opportunities, they are obligated to point out the potential risks. To prove that they do this, they are compelled by law to record any conversations that count as consultations or that lead to the signing of a contract. Around the world, this practice is governed by local finance laws and regulations—such as MiFID II in Europe, the FCA rules in the UK, and the Dodd-Frank Act in the US. “The regulations for recording customer communications are particularly stringent,” says Gerald Kromer, CEO of ASC Technologies AG. “Each recording must be legally secure, retrievable at any time, in compliance with the relevant data protection laws, and protected from manipulation and deletion. That calls for compliance recording.” Should regulatory authorities such as BaFin—the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority—determine during an audit that compliance has been breached, the financial institution in question could be issued with a caution, fined millions, or even lose its banking license. Katrin Henkel, President ASC Americas Inc. at ASC Technologies AG: “That’s why it’s essential for our customers to be able to find, produce, and access the relevant recordings quickly.”

Risk managers conduct compliance spot checks on the consultation recordings. “But these cover only a relatively small proportion of the actual conversations. The majority of consultations remain untouched,” Kromer says. Another obstacle is that banks are becoming increasingly international: “Conversations are happening in all kinds of different languages. But if risk managers can’t understand what’s being said, they can’t produce an assessment.”

This is precisely where ASC’s Recording Insights solution comes in. The company has been an expert in this area of audio technology for around 60 years. Back in 2018, ASC recognized the potential for an innovative, digital, and cloud-native solution that would provide faster and simpler ways of complying with regulations and identifying potential risks. The company decided to put all its eggs in one basket by using Microsoft Teams as the central hub. Looking back, it was definitely the right decision because, in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis, the banking sector is increasingly using the collaboration platform to communicate with customers. “We set out to make Microsoft Teams comply with all regulations pertinent to the financial services industry (FSI), underpinned by Microsoft Azure. For us as well as our customers, the leading communication, collaboration, and security technologies on the market are from Microsoft—which are the technologies we use within the company,” Kromer says. “The sector was very skeptical at first, but Microsoft’s stringent requirements for security and data protection ultimately won the day.”

The solution: Recording Insights in Microsoft Teams records, while the Compliance Policy Engine based on Azure Cognitive Services analyzes the risks

To comply with their local data protection regulations, European banks process and store their data in Europe, while US banks do so in data centers located in the US. By using the entire Microsoft Azure technology stack, ASC ensures that data does not leave its regulatory region and that customers retain sovereignty over their data.

“Recording Insights is available wherever Azure is,” Kromer says. “In the past, recording phone consultations meant installing a recording device on-site—it took several weeks until the infrastructure was in place. Now, with Teams and Azure, we can be up and running anywhere in the world within two hours and at one-tenth of the cost.” 

ASC’s Recording Insights is secure, easy to manage, and offers high availability. The solution connects to the customer’s Teams tenant. Data is processed using Azure Service Fabric and Azure Cosmos DB, and stored in ASC’s or its customer’s Azure Blob Storage. The data can then be forwarded to Dynamics 365, analyzed using Azure Cognitive Services, and translated using Translator. What’s more, the solution is integrated into the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services (FSI), which offers a host of functions for managing financial services data. “Integration into this sector-specific solution adds yet another layer of trust and thus offers FSI customers a comprehensive package from a single source,” Henkel says. The Microsoft Cloud for FSI makes it easier for financial services companies to offer their varied experience, empower their employees, and ensure maximum compliance. 

An interface to Dynamics 365 allows recordings to be stored alongside customer data and thus provides for a seamless history. If needed, Dynamics 365 also supports compliance alerts triggered by the results of analyses performed by the Compliance Policy Engine. “Thanks to Azure Cognitive Services, we’re now able to analyze 100 percent of consultations and close the compliance gap left open by the previous spot-check method,” Henkel says. “This minimizes the risks for banks and improves their service.” Compliance managers can then focus on those conversations flagged by the AI, for instance because the consultant forgot to mention certain disclaimers or used certain taboo words. In this way, banks can ensure that their investment consultations comply with all relevant regulations. 

ASC offers its Recording Insights application in 14 different languages, and conversations can be transcribed and translated into more than 80 languages for analysis. “This puts, say, English-speaking compliance managers in a position to assess the risks related to conversations that originally took place in Japanese or Mandarin. That used to be impossible,” Henkel says.

Today, ASC Technologies ensures compliance for recordings of customer communications—both in terms of technology and content—and manages the relevant risks. “We’re steadily evolving from a recording company into an analysis company, with data-driven added value becoming more important all the time,” Henkel says. “We’re also tapping the potential of new Microsoft technologies like Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Digital Contact Center.” This means that ASC is best placed to move closer to its vision for the future of companies in all sectors being able to more easily comply with their requirements—not just in the area of finance, but also in insurance, public safety, energy, and healthcare. Kromer and Henkel both expect customer communications in those sectors to become more regulated as time goes on.

“Our Recording Insights cloud-native solution is available wherever in the world Microsoft Azure is available, and can be set up within two hours and for one-tenth of the cost of a conventional solution.”

Gerald Kromer, CEO, ASC Technologies AG

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