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Hearsay Systems, a provider of digital communications and workflow solutions for the insurance and financial services industry, has announced its latest offering to simplify compliance for modern financial services organizations. The company debuted what it characterizes as the first and only automated compliance supervision solution specifically for text messaging to proactively protect firms from financial service and telecommunication industry requirements. The solution leverages industry-specific keyword lexicons powered by Hearsay’s compliance platform with AI-powered risk meter.
The new offering provides a set of pre-built lexicon lists that align with firm, industry, and federally mandated advertising regulations, according to Hearsay. It uses intelligent classifiers to automatically detect any forbidden keywords in employee text messages. Any texts that include a match from lexicon lists are either blocked or an AI-driven risk alert is created for compliance review, preventing any agent or advisor from willingly or unwittingly engaging in unscrupulous practices via text. Besides specific regulatory matches, these pre-built lexicon lists also are designed to discourage specific behavior patterns that would run afoul of FCC and FTC privacy and consumer protection regulations, such as direct solicitation. Hearsay’s lexicons are continuously enhanced based on thousands of decisions made by compliance officers, enabling texting programs to scale without adding additional headcount.
Accommodating Business Conducted over Text
“Compliance is one of the biggest issues for financial services organizations, and as more and more business is conducted via text, it becomes increasingly complex,” comments Chris Fernandes, Head of Legal & Compliance, Hearsay Systems. “We recognized this as a problem for our customers and designed our intelligent, modular lexicons to provide a simple, turnkey solution that protects organizations and field representatives alike. It has never been easier for advisors and agents to adhere to their respective firms’ texting policies or for firms to protect their brand reputation across all channels.”
The latest compliance supervision capabilities were designed so that any financial services organization can select which terms it would like to utilize from Hearsay’s curated Wealth Management, Property & Casualty, and Life Insurance industry lexicons in order to meet its own organizational risk profile, the vendor reports. Organizations can also include any additional lexicon terms that they see fit or use Hearsay’s lexicons to supplement existing lists that are already set up.
Hearsay’s industry-specific lexicons are built on Hearsay’s compliance platform, a solution designed to enable firms to easily monitor, supervise, and comply with company policies and industry regulations including FINRA, SEC, FFIEC, NAIC, IIROC, FCA, and MiFID II requirements. The new Advertising Lexicons allows firms to comply with guidance and regulations from MMA, FCC, and FTC. Hearsay’s compliance platform also applies predictive technology to reduce false alerts and help compliance teams focus on activities that pose the highest risk while increasing security coverage and control. In fact, Hearsay found that compliance officers collectively saved nearly 75,000 hours in 2019 by automating manual tasks.
Flexible Policy Controls and Approval Workflows
Applying Hearsay lexicons to texts over its compliance platform, firms are able to not only block outgoing messages based on rules, but monitor activities through a universal supervision dashboard which includes alerts, internal team notes, and text message sampling, the vendor says. Administrators gain flexible policy controls and approval workflows as well. They also can view text message attribution so that they have a record of who said what, when, and to whom. The universal supervision dashboard provides advanced reporting capabilities, both pre-built and custom options, and flexible TCPA Opt-In, Opt-Out and Consent Notice flows. It can be set up based on hierarchy by either region or line of business to meet the needs of complex organization structures.
Hearsay reports that its compliance platform captures and logs all mobile voice calling and text message data that can be integrated into a CRM or archive system for activity monitoring and e-discovery. Firms also retain complete ownership of all of their data.
In addition to its pre-built industry lexicons, Hearsay has a dedicated compliance advisory practice available to review firms’ existing lexicons and provide recommendations to cover new channels and regulatory needs with greater accuracy.
Hearsay Systems Launches Hearsay Compliance Advisory Services