NICE Enhances NICE COMPASS with Automated System Health Checks
NICE is introducing an Automated Voice Trade Communication and Recording System Health Check capability as part of its NICE COMPASS solution suite.
The new capability is designed to help financial services organizations (FSOs) provide accurate records of trading communications, in accordance with MiFID II's strict regulations that go into effect Jan. 3. As part of those regulations, financial firms will have to ensure that the systems used to conduct and record trading communications are fully operational at all times, and that captured voice recordings are of high quality and useable. MiFID II's stricter compliance assurance requirements also imply that FSOs should institute proactive alerting systems to notify if a voice trade communication system is not working or if conversations are not being properly recorded and retained.
"Under MiFID II, business-as-usual ways of performing this testing are no longer going to work," said Chris Wooten, executive vice president of NICE, in a statement. "In addition to increasing the number of regulated users who need to be recorded, MiFID is raising the regulatory hurdle for FSOs by requiring complete transparency and accountability. It's no longer sufficient simply to have systems in place that enable conversations to be conducted, recorded, and retained; FSOs need to ensure those systems are fully operational and all working together as planned and provide evidence around the auditing process and results."
The NICE COMPASS Automated System Health Check capability tests all communication and recording processes and associated systems to ensure flawless performance and call recording quality. Scheduled, automated system tests can be centrally managed and remotely performed across the entire company. It also ensures that trading communications for all regulated users are being recorded with good quality audio and properly retained. The new NICE COMPASS capability even simulates calls to ensure all related components, including networks, gateways, PBXs, recording, audio quality, archiving, and retention, are fully functional and working together, automatically triggering alerts when problems arise. All health check results are viewable on a browser-based dashboard.
"Mounting regulations are creating new challenges for FSOs, but these can be easily addressed through automation, and that's where NICE COMPASS comes in," Wooten said. "With NICE COMPASS, FSOs can overcome regulatory hurdles by centralizing oversight of the communications compliance process and automating compliance processes that were previously handled manually. By helping to eliminate manual, error-prone processes, NICE COMPASS can potentially save FSOs millions of dollars in labor costs while avoiding fines and reputational damage."