FINRA: Compliance Guide Social Networks, Web 2.0 and Unified Communications
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(1)Overview: Securities traders, banks, investment advisors and others in the financial services industry have long embraced new communication tools. Regulators, such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the National Futures Association (NFA), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and others have established regulations regarding the appropriate use and management of the content generated using these tools.
However, financial services firms want and need to use new communication and information tools to supplement their use of more traditional technologies. These tools include:
unified communications systems that integrate email, real-time chat and voice into a single platform
social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter that permit dissemination and gathering of information in novel ways
Skype and other tools that combines telephony with presence-based capabilities
Those in the financial services industry can gain significant competitive advantage and make decisions more quickly through the use of these tools.
Yet, there are significant security and compliance risks associated with the uncontrolled and improper use of these technologies. So any financial services organization should do two things:
leverage them as a competitive advantage to lower costs and allow an improved level of customer service
manage them properly, making sure to follow industry and regulatory best practices for logging content, blocking threats, preventing data leaks, archiving content and controlling their use.
This white paper explores the newer technologies in use, while offering advice on what organizations should do to mitigate the associated risks.
