MiFID II regulations are nearly here. Are you ready?

Your FCA mobile call recording solution needs to be up to the task

Although financial firms are obliged to record fixed line phone calls under existing FCA regulations and the 2004 Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the requirements are set to become more stringent when MiFID II comes into force.

The introduction of the new law, now under two months away, was originally planned for January 2017 but was delayed in order to afford businesses more time to update their systems and ensure compliance.

What is the MiFID II regulation?

MiFID is an EU law that sets out to better regulate the financial services industry with a view to improving the level of protection provided to the consumer. Hailed as one of the most significant regulation changes to ever hit the industry, the revised version of the legislation, MiFID II, will now be coming into force in January 2018.

The MiFID II regulation increases the scope of the original legislation and will affect significantly more businesses; only small independent financial institutions will now be exempt from the law.

If you have not already taken steps to prepare for this change in the law, now is the time to ensure that your business is fully compliant with the new legislation.

What does the MiFID II regulation mean for communications?

One of the main goals of the MiFID II regulation is to increase the amount of transparency in the market. As such, it dictates that all communications need to be recorded.

The directive states that "firms will be obliged to record all communications that are intended to result in a transaction", including mobile phone calls, voice-mail messages and text messages, as well as fixed line phone calls, emails, and instant messages.

The legislation also requires that these recordings are kept for a minimum of five years, and at least seven years if requested by a national crime agency. In addition, clients must be informed that their communications are being recorded and the recordings must be available to them on request. Recordings must be easily accessible to both clients and law enforcement, but cannot be amendable.

Careful planning is required over how these requirements are going to be met, as many of the most obvious solutions (like a simple change in company policy) come with significant compromise.

MiFID II mobile recording plans

Truphone provides a MiFID II regulation compliant service that records voice calls and SMS messages. Our system integrates with our international mobile SIM cards and is completely handset and location agnostic. Wherever you and the other party are in the world, and whatever device you and your team are using, so long as you are on our network, your mobile communications will always be recorded by our MiFID II compliant system.

Our in-network voice recording system is fully compatible with our voicemail service, and removes the possibility of unrecorded calls and accidental or deliberate circumvention.

Find out more about our MiFID II mobile recording solution now and make sure that come 3rd January 2018, your business is ready.