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Helping Principal Firms Manage Compliance of Published Content 

Compliance

Risk

Points that a compliance officer might need to check or monitor

Enabling and enhancing the monitoring of published content

A compliance officer working in an office and checking content published on websites and social media

Monitoring and managing compliance of content published by ARs and affiliates on websites and social media channels is a major challenge 

A key responsibility of Principal Firms is to ensure that the content published by their appointed representatives (ARs) or affiliates, complies with the various regulations.

 

Therefore, a principal firm's "compliance monitoring" team - Compliance or Legal - have a very important role.

 

However, doing their job is often very challenging because of:

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  • The difficulty of manually identifying all of the content that has been published by affiliates or appointed representatives ... and then identifying those which are subject to regulatory compliance

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  • The sheer volume of content that is published

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  • The amount of time that it takes to check the published content and to confirm that:

    • It has been approved

    • The published content exactly matches what was approved

    • The content is still compliant and still valid

And we know that because of these challenges, compliance monitoring in many organisations is:

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  • Not done

  • Done infrequently

  • Done poorly

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Therefore ...

 

  • Where monitoring is done and is done properly, the challenge is that it involves a significant amount of time and effort

  • Where monitoring is not done properly, the firm is in breach of its legal / regulatory responsibilities with the associated risk of both reputation damage and action by the regulator​

The good news ... it doesn't have to be that way!

What is easily possible

It is easily possible to achieve a position where:

 

  • A very high % of all (relevant) content published via websites and social media channels is automatically identified and checked 

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  • Issues or risks are automatically flagged up so that they can be checked and corrective actions taken if necessary​

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  • There is a full audit trail that can be used to demonstrate how you are complying with the regulatory requirements

Overall Workload

60% to 80% reduction in workload compared to manual monitoring

Free up time to be spent on more valuable and more enjoyable activities.

What compliance monitors at Principal Firms need 

Diagram showing the 7 key solutions for efficient compliance management - highlighting the most important for monitoring
To achieve the most efficient way of monitoring content compliance, compliance monitoring teams need 5 of the 7 key solutions to be in place.
 
However, 2 of those are likely to produce the most benefits: 
 
  • No. 1 - Standardised Compliance Guidance, Rules and Wording
  • No. 6 - Compliance Checking System

7 KEY SOLUTIONS

We have a detailed guide to each of the 7 key solutions.

Note.

  1. Several of the 7 Key Solutions provide a range of features / functionality that are not directly related to content compliance. However, achieving the most efficient way of managing content compliance, normally requires those solutions to have some content compliance features or functionality. 2 examples are a) Work Management System and b) Digital Asset Management System

The most important solution for compliance monitoring

A good Compliance Checking System will normally provide the biggest benefits for compliance monitoring teams

A good compliance checking system will:

 

  • Automatically identify and then check (relevant) content that has been published to websites or social media

  • Identify any regulatory risks or issues in that content

  • Help to identify any differences between the published content and what was approved

  • Explain the reason for the risk or issue being flagged

  • Provide compliance monitors with the ability to:

    • Accept or reject any individual risk / issue​

    • ​Decide whether any corrective action is required​

Effective & Efficient Compliance Management
Compliance Checking System

When considering any compliance checking system, important factors to take into account include:

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  • How easy or difficult it is to set-up and manage the checks (especially important if multiple regulations are involved)

  • What content formats are supported

  • Which types of checks the system is able to do

  • Which social media channels are supported

  • Cost (of course!)

The right compliance checking system can help compliance monitors by:

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  • Significantly cutting the time needed to:

    • Identify relevant published content

    • Check the content 

    • Decide on any corrective action

  • Automatically providing an audit trail ​

Just using a good compliance checking system will typically reduce overall compliance monitoring workload by between 50% and 70%.

We do not provide any compliance checking system but, can help you select the best one for you. If this is of interest, check out this service
Find the compliance technology (and supplier) that best meets your requirements

How we can help compliance monitors at Principal Firms to get what they need 

How we can help, will depend on what phase you are in ...
Discovery
1
You want to understand:
 
  • What improvements are possible 
  • Which of the 7 key solutions are needed and which are the most important
  • Whether any new technology is needed
  • What additions or changes are needed to the current systems and way of working
  • What the likely costs and benefits are
If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
Description of this service
Quickly identify opportunities to significantly improve the way that content compliance is managed for content creators
Establish where you are today, where you want to be and how to make key improvements, fast!
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Compare different solution options and understand which ones are affordable and which ones provide the best return
Solution & Supplier Selection
2

You have decided that you need to get some new compliance technology and you want to:

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  • Make sure that all of the content checking / compliance monitoring requirements are captured and prioritised

  • Identify and evaluate systems and suppliers likely to be able to meet the requirements

  • Make sure that right solution(s) and supplier(s) are selected

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Find the compliance technology (and supplier) that best meets your requirements
Pilot Implementation
3

You have selected some new compliance technology and you want to run a pilot to:

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  • Test / confirm that the system has the features and functionality as stated by the supplier(s)

  • Understand what’s involved in setting up the system

  • Assess how well the system(s) meet your requirements

  • Assess the likely benefits that will be delivered with a full rollout of the system(s)

  • Decide whether to progress to full rollout of the system(s)

  • Understand what non-system changes (such as processes or roles and responsibilities) should be made in order to maximise the efficiency improvements

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
The ideal content compliance solution for content creators in your organisation
Make sure that you have all of the right pieces in place to create compliant content in the best possible way
Minimise the costs and maximise the success of your content compliance projects
A content specific "compliance briefing" that provides everything needed to ensure that any content or material is compliant.
Full Implementation
4

You have decided to go ahead with the full implementation of new compliance technology and you want to:

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  • Complete the full rollout / implementation of the selected solutions

  • Ensure that the required improvements and benefits are achieved

If you are in this phase, the services below are most likely to be of interest:
Make sure that you have all of the right pieces in place to create compliant content in the best possible way
Minimise the costs and maximise the success of your content compliance projects
A content specific "compliance briefing" that provides everything needed to ensure that any content or material is compliant.
Review the impact of the changes made and identify opportunities for further improvement

Other ways that we can help Principal Firms

You might be interested in checking out the other ways in which we can help principal firms

Enabling Compliance and Legal teams to quickly and easily check new content that ARs and affiliates have created and have submitted for approval.

Helping appointed representatives and affiliates to quickly and easily create content that is fully compliant and therefore, can be approved 1st time every time.

Find out more about how we help compliance monitoring teams

For any of the following, please contact us:

  • To get an example of an Opportunity Assessment or Health Check report

  • To find out more about any of our services

  • Anything else!

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