Regulatory recordkeeping enforcement roundup: A storybook retelling

What does the recordkeeping enforcement story show?

Financial regulators have increasingly focused on whether firms can capture, retain, and produce business communications as employee communications move beyond traditional email and onto messaging, mobile, and collaboration channels.

Global Relay’s Regulatory Recordkeeping Storybook traces this enforcement journey up to its June 2024 publication, examining how communications practices and regulatory expectations evolved alongside one another.

Why has electronic communications recordkeeping become aregulatory priority?

The central issue is not simply which communications tools employees use. It is whether business-related communications that fall within recordkeeping obligations are captured and preserved in a way that allows firms to retrieve and produce them when required.

As communication channels have multiplied, regulators have increasingly scrutinized gaps between written policies and actual employee behavior. A policy that prohibits certain channels does not, by itself, create a complete record if employees continue to use those channels for business.

What themes emerge from recordkeeping enforcement?

• Recordkeeping obligations follow the communication, not just the approved corporate channel.
• Off-channel and mobile communications can create material compliance gaps when firms cannot capture or retain them.
• Supervision, retention, and communications capture need to work together rather than operate as separate controls.
• Policies and employee training remain important, but firms also need technology capable of supporting the way employees actually communicate.
• Regulatory scrutiny has increasingly focused on whether firms can demonstrate that required communications records are complete, retrievable, and appropriately governed.

How has the communications landscape changed the recordkeeping challenge?

Electronic communications are no longer limited to corporate email. Business conversations can take place across text messaging, mobile devices, instant messaging, collaboration platforms, social media, and other digital channels.

For regulated firms, this creates a broader recordkeeping challenge: identifying which communications must be captured, ensuring the relevant channels are covered, applying appropriate retention, and maintaining records in a form that can support supervision, investigations, audits, or regulatory requests.

What can firms learn from the enforcement journey?

The enforcement history covered by the storybook highlights the importance of aligning communications policy with practical communications behavior. Firms should understand where business conversations are taking place, determine which records fall within applicable obligations, and assess whether their capture and retention controls reflect that reality.

Key questions for compliance teams

• Which electronic communications channels are employees using for business?
• Are required communications captured regardless of device or platform?
• Can retained records be searched and produced when needed?
• Do policies, supervision, and technology controls reflect actual communications behavior?
• How are new communications channels assessed before or as they enter use?

Explore the recordkeeping enforcement timeline

The full Regulatory Recordkeeping Storybook follows the enforcement journey through its June 2024publication date, bringing together the key developments, enforcement statistics, and analysis of howfinancial regulators approached communications recordkeeping as channels and retention expectationsevolved.

Read the full storybook to explore the enforcement timeline and the implications for communications capture and recordkeeping compliance in more detail.