BLOG
Learn more about what we do while staying up-to-date with industry regulations and trends
801-896-0951
|
A firm in Florida was recently fined for failing to update their WSPs after it began recommending EB-5 investments. Additionally, it was discovered that many of their WSPs were “not deemed reasonable because they provided only limited guidance to those representatives at the firm who facilitated and participated in these EB-5 transactions.” Are you continually updating your WSPs? How do you ensure new policies and WSPs have been reviewed and approved before distributing them throughout your firm?  Oftentimes firms have their policies and WSPs in various pdfs and word documents throughout their system. Many advisors are referencing outdated files saved on the network or their computers. The Policies app from SiteQuest Compliance helps firms organize their policies and written supervisory procedures into one online platform that conveys a professional branded content to their advisors. Policies is a powerful tool used to consolidate, version control, and distribute your firm’s policies and WSPs to your employees and advisors. With our VIP Service included with Policies, SiteQuest Compliance manages all the changes, formatting, and online publishing for no additional charge. Policies notify your employees when a Policy or WSP has been updated. Our “favorites” feature allows advisors to bookmark these new updates for quick reference. In accordance with FINRA rules our Policies application ensures the most up-to-date policies are accessed, identified, and utilized, reducing your risks. This same disciplinary action ruled that “the firm failed to establish, maintain and enforce a system, including WSPs, reasonably designed to supervise its registered representatives’ EB-5 related websites. The firm did not conduct regular supervisory reviews of websites maintained by the two representatives in relation to their EB-5 business that contained content that violated FINRA’s advertising rules.” Our SQWatcher program compliments our Policies application while assisting your compliance department with monitoring your registered advisors’ websites. SQWatcher automatically creates workflow events when website changes have been made, allowing for quick and easy reviews. SQWatcher’s updated dashboard, bulk review enhancements, and powerful workflow review processes allows your firm to monitor and document dozens to hundreds of websites with relatively few employee hours involved. Automated documentation reduces compliance and “failure to supervise” risks while demonstrating to regulators, your firm is actively supervising these unique websites in compliance with FINRA and SEC rules. Contact us today for your personalized demo and see for yourself how SiteQuest Compliance can streamline your processes while maximizing your time and efficiencies. Source: FINRA.org  In a recent investigation and settlement, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth fined a firm for failing to have reasonable policies and procedures in place to detect and monitor a broker-dealer agent’s use of social media accounts. The infamous “Roaring Kitty” investigation found that the firm: “Failed to have reasonable policies and procedures in place to detect and monitor a broker-dealer agent’s use of social media accounts unaffiliated with (the firm) to achieve compliance with the Act of Regulations. Specifically,...policies and procedures were inadequate to detect...social media activities, including over 250 hours, or 10 days’ worth of YouTube videos detailing investment strategies, at least 590 securities-related tweets on Twitter, and a similar volume of posts on other social media platforms all concerning securities-related information.“ Additionally, these findings stated that the firm: “Prohibited its broker-dealer agents from discussing generic securities and company business on social media, including specifically YouTube and Twitter. Despite these prohibitions, (the firm) failed to implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to detect, monitor or prevent its broker-dealer agents from discussing securities-related information or company business…” This settlement resulted in a multimillion-dollar fine, and three years of compliance audits and scrutiny.
Does your firm have reasonable policies and procedures in place when it comes to supervising your agents’ online presence? Are you actively searching and monitoring the internet in compliance with FINRA rules 3110, 3120, 3130, and 3270? Detection is key to a reasonably designed web supervision process. With over 10 years of experience, Eagle Eye has become a trusted partner for firms in establishing policies and procedures, while automating searches and documentation of supervision practices. Eagle Eye provides everything you need including when a result was found, screenshots of the webpage, who reviewed it, comments that were made, and timestamps on every action taken. Address issues prior to regulatory discovery or examination. Contact us today and let us demonstrate how Eagle Eye can support your compliance department while lowering your risk. Source: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/sct/current/sctmassmutual/MMLIS-Consent-Order-E-2021-0004.pdf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=in_case_you_missed_it&utm_term=2021-09-23 9/24/2021
New Secretary of State SearchesEagle Eye, by SiteQuest Compliance, can now search across all 50 states for corporate registrations associated with your advisors. Click to watch and see how.
These Secretary of State reviews are integrated into Eagle Eye’s workflow and can be reviewed with other items of concern such as undisclosed social media accounts, online profiles, websites, event listings, and more. Additionally, corporate registrations can be reviewed in a customized workflow allowing you to view findings across your organization. Eagle Eye automatically documents the whole review process with details on what was reviewed, who reviewed it, comments and actions taken, complete with timestamps, and a screenshot of the business registration listing. Contact us today for your personalized demo to see how Eagle Eye can help you save time and money while lowering your risks associated with Outside Business Activities. Does your web supervision program completely hinge upon disclosure from your advisors, employees, or clients? As the web continues to grow, new technologies create more and more opportunities to advertise, promote, and engage with prospective clients online. These increasing requirements to uncover and supervise a representative’s web presence falls upon compliance and supervision departments. That is where Eagle Eye provides a solution to help formalize your internet supervision program while lowering your risk. Watch and Learn More. Contact us today and let us demonstrate how Eagle Eye can support your compliance department.
6/28/2021
Communications with the Public FINRA’s 2021 Report on Examination and Risk Monitoring found that with regards to Rule 2210, Communications with the Public, many firms had insufficient policies, supervision, and recordkeeping for their digital communications. FINRA reminded firms that a “digital communication policy must address all permitted and prohibited digital communication channels and features available to your customers and associated persons.” Our new Policies solution will help ensure that your registered advisors are utilizing your firm’s most current and up to date policies and WSPs with regards to Communications with the Public. Advisors can even designate these Rule 2210 specific WSPs as “favorites” for quick and easy reference within the Policies app. FINRA also reminded firms about the need to provide training on relevant FINRA rules and firm policies when it comes to communications with the public. With our Policies app you can send links to your advisors when new policies are published. Each policy will state when it was published and by whom. You can even link within your policies to specific related FINRA regulations and rules. FINRA cited as some of their concerns: “Not maintaining policies and procedures to reasonably identify and respond to red flags—such as customer complaints, representatives’ email, OBA reviews or advertising reviews—that registered representatives used impermissible business-related digital communications methods, including texting, messaging, social media, collaboration apps or “electronic sales seminars...” SiteQuest Compliance has several applications to support compliance personnel in their efforts to supervise “Communication with the Public”. Our Eagle Eye app will assist you in monitoring the internet while discovering any potential undisclosed OBAs, social media accounts, blogs, websites, and more. With built in automated documentation you will have everything you need including when a result was found, who reviewed it, comments that were made, and timestamps on every action taken. From a regulatory point of view, with Eagle Eye you will have the full story of what communication content looked like at the time of review, giving you everything you need to respond to a regulator. Eagle Eye's “Heightened Supervision Mode” empowers you to monitor your advisors at a variety of levels. For those that push the envelope a Heightened Level of Supervision may be required. In any situation, Eagle Eye allows you to customize your approach with built in automation to notify specific individuals up the chain of command. FINRA stressed the importance of notification and monitoring. “Requiring registered representatives to notify compliance of any changes to approved communications, and conducting periodic, at least annual, monitoring and review of previously approved communications for changes and updates.” With our SQWatcher application, firms can monitor communications on websites by actively supervising for unapproved changes and providing historical archives of the sites. SQWatcher can even monitor websites hosted by non-approved website providers.
SiteQuest Compliance supports your firm’s adherence to regulatory requirements 2210 by actively supervising the internet, monitoring and archiving websites, and ensuring that your advisors have access and are utilizing the most current policies and WSPs with regards to Communications with the Public. With our suite of compliance applications SiteQuest Compliance has become a trusted partner for over a decade. Contact us today and see for yourself how our suite of applications will work for you. Source: https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/guidance/reports/2021-finras-examination-and-risk-monitoring-program/communications-with-public  Isn’t the whole point of a vacation not to work? Why would you have to make a plan not to work?
According to a recent Harris Poll 66% of Americans report working when they take PTO or vacation days. 42% admit to contacting a colleague while on their holiday. Many of us simply cannot unplug from work. Whether self-imposed or an unwritten rule of your workplace, employees are not taking the vacation time they need and deserve. That’s why we’ve put together 5 tips on how to ensure your summer vacation is as enjoyable and work-free as possible. 1. First, make a real commitment to actually taking a vacation. Going through the motions of buying airplane tickets, hotel reservations, and drawing up a basic itinerary doesn’t count. Just because you’ve made plans to not be physically present in the office doesn’t mean you are not mentally and psychologically still wrapped up in your work. The whole point of paid time off is to rejuvenate and recover. You simply can’t be your professional best if you don’t take time off. So get into the mindset and buy into the fact that your holiday is supposed to be time away bringing you back to the workplace as a better, more refreshed person. 2. Ditch the guilt. You can’t relax if you’re worried about what you’re “not” doing. However, it’s easier said than done for some of us to not feel guilty about taking time off. Do what you need to do in order to minimize feelings of guilt. For some of us that may mean rescheduling a vacation to a better time (e.g. not in the middle of a new product launch) or trying to cram in your tasks before you leave. For others, that may simply mean taking a colleague out to lunch to thank them for covering for you ahead of time, or sending them a treat when you come back. 3. Communicate with your colleagues and managers early on about your absence, and don’t just block the time on your calendar. Be sure to send calendar notifications to those you think really need to have this planned into their own work schedule because they will have to cover for you or simply need to be aware. Everyone is busy and it’s hard for people to be aware of anyone else’s schedule. Many of your colleagues want to respect your time off but simply don’t remember or don’t realize that you will be gone. 4. Create an “Out of the Office” auto-reply for your email and your work voicemail. Auto-replies work. Customers and co-workers will understand that you will not respond till you are back from your vacation. They just need a reminder that you are away. In some cases, your boss will be the one that needs a reminder, or it may be your major clients or regular contacts. In other cases, it’s simply telling the team-members who will be covering for you to be proactive in cc:ing you (or not, if you prefer) but not expecting you to respond. Doing this may not reduce the number of emails or voicemails you return to, but it will set expectations and explain why you are not responding for a while. 5. Minimize your “other” work on vacation. Your job responsibilities are not the only kind of work that you should try to minimize on vacation. For many women, care-taking responsibilities surge to the forefront on vacation. Just ask any mother and she will tell you that childcare and family responsibilities on vacation can be so exhausting that it’s more restful to actually return to work. Making a plan to enlist babysitters on vacation, family members, or partners for their support while you're taking time off is something many individuals neglect to do. If you’re like most full-time employed Americans, you work hard. According to a Gallup poll, adults employed full-time work reported working an average of 47 hours per week. You deserve a vacation and they don’t just “happen” without some active thought and planning. For many in the supervision and compliance departments they feel like their jobs are never ending. That is why we have built in automations for our applications. Eagle Eye is always running in the background. You can customize alerts so that if you are out of the office alerts can go to another designated person. From a regulatory point of view, Eagle Eye will give you the full story of what content looked like at the time of review, even if you are out of the office, giving you everything you need to respond to a regulator. SQWatcher will continue to monitor websites, even when you are on vacation. With our easy to use workflows you will be able to go through any changes that occurred while you were away. Our easy to use workflow feature sets SQWatcher apart from the competition. Reviewers can identify what has changed on the website, where changes occurred, and when the changes happened. Our content ignore feature gives you the ability to ignore sections of the site that generate unnecessary reviews like stock tickers, date widgets, and more. Saving you countless hours. It’s just the beginning of June so if you haven’t had the chance to sit down and really plan your summer holiday yet, make sure your vacation plans incorporate these ideas. Then give us a call and let us show you how our applications will help streamline your processes and ease the burden of piling up workloads after your PTO. 3/15/2021
Time is Your Most Valuable Asset There’s a reason why most successful people agree that time is their most valuable asset: Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. Unlike money, you can’t earn more time. Here are five ways how I try to get time back during my workday:
In business in general we waste our time by doing what we have always done, the way we have always done it. Getting bogged down in manual processes that could be streamlined through innovation and technology. Oftentimes for compliance, their responsibilities can become overwhelming, frustrating, and stressful because the workload for supervision is continually multiplying. Today’s regulatory environment is one that supports innovation within the financial industry. Regulators encourage financial organizations to rely on technology to effectively and efficiently execute a compliance program. FINRA’s newly formed Office of Financial Innovation is an example of this. For over a decade SiteQuest Compliance has been the partner of choice when it comes to internet supervision and website monitoring. Our automated applications on average cut our clients work load by 80%. Eliminating time-consuming manual processes, automating notifications and reports, and streamlining workflows. How do you want to get back your time? Contact me today, and I will personally show you how our applications will work for you and your firm. One of our clients stated: "The Eagle Eye application has been a force multiplier in my firm’s supervisory scheme. This simple tool has transformed my internet surveillance sweep process from a time-consuming, multi-day enterprise where I view the same search results over and over to a simple process that can be completed in a couple of hours."  It has been over 40 years since significant changes to "The Investment Advisers Act" were adopted. To say that advisors are excited about this recent update is definitely an understatement. With all of the different communication and social media platforms available to advisors, they are eagerly looking forward to sharing testimonials with potential clients hoping to open new doors of opportunities.
Firms and their compliance departments need to take a proactive approach when it comes to addressing these new marketing updates. Testimonials and endorsements still need to be monitored and approved to ensure they are not misleading investors. Firms need to decide what types of statements they are going to approve, what platforms will be utilized, and how registered advisors are going to notify them and gain approval before any endorsement is published. Initially advisors will want to add these testimonials and endorsements to their websites and other online destinations that may or may not be monitored by compliance. Demands on compliance’s time for monitoring and approvals will certainly increase. Additionally, firms need to reevaluate their disclosure policies to ensure that advisors provide notification and documentation of what and where they wish to publish testimonials and endorsements online. Compliance departments should expect to see a large increase in their workload related to internet monitoring and approvals that need to occur. What will compliance do to monitor endorsement and testimonial platforms such as Yelp, Google Reviews, or social media platforms like Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter? Advertisements that include third-party ratings will be required to include specific disclosures to prevent them from being misleading. Is compliance waiting for advisors to disclose everything? Are policies based entirely on the honor system? How do you discover your advisor’s online presence, including these new testimonials and endorsements if they are not disclosing them to compliance? While you are forming your compliance strategy and updating policies, procedures and workflows it is important to consider how and what technologies can assist compliance with this increased workload. As the SEC and FINRA are adapting to new technology, compliance departments need to evolve and rely on innovative technology as well to support their job requirements. For over a decade, SiteQuest Compliance has continued to be a trusted partner, supporting compliance and supervision departments with tools that can help meet these increasing demands with regards to compliance and supervision. Our Eagle Eye solution uncovers and supervises your advisors’ online footprint. It discovers social media accounts, websites, blogs, yelp pages, OBAs, DBAs, and online profiles, allowing you to address issues prior to regulatory discovery or examination. Our SQWatcher platform monitors and archives advisor websites including those that may be hosted by non-approved website providers. It creates historical records of these sites, creates workflow events of specific types of changes like new pages, changes to readable text, images, and more with customizable rules to meet your needs. This update to the Investment Advisers Act will require your firm to revise its policies. Our newly launched Policies solution is a powerful tool used to organize, version control, and distribute your firm’s policies and Written Supervisory Procedures (WSPs) to your employees and advisors. Ensuring that your advisors always have access to your most current policies with easy to search features. As your advisors are “Modernizing their Marketing Practices” contact us today to discuss your specific needs and concerns. Let us show you how we can help streamline your workflows to maximize your time, while helping to ensure you don’t miss anything with regards to internet and website supervision and content approval. Sources: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-334 | https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2020/ia-5653.pdf  Whether they wanted to innovate, or a pandemic forced their hand, advisors embraced more digital marketing resources during 2020.
According to InvestmentNews Research, 42% of advisers have used a new digital marketing or technology tool for the first time during 2020, while 88% have expanded the use of at least one tool. The driving force, not surprisingly, was the pandemic, and a stay-at-home environment that forced advisors to find new ways to connect with their customers. As our world has changed over the past year it begs questions like:
Surges in online marketing and communications are not going to level out anytime soon. 80% of surveyed advisers said they would be placing more importance on their digital marketing in the coming year. For nearly a decade, Eagle Eye has provided a platform compliance can rely on when it comes to monitoring the internet activity of their advisors. Eagle Eye discovers social media accounts, websites, blogs, OBAs, DBAs, online profiles, and events that belong to or are about your advisors, allowing you to address issues prior to regulatory discovery or examination. Eagle Eye monitors 50,000+ advisors across our customer base and has automatically alerted compliance supervisors on over 1.2M discoveries that warranted reviews broken down by
Contact us to schedule a time to discuss your internet supervision compliance needs and concerns this New Year. We will show you the solutions that Eagle Eye provides to companies when it comes to internet supervision. Kindly, James Cella, President and CEO james@sqcompliance.com Source: https://www.investmentnews.com/adapt-and-survive-2020-forces-adviser-embrace-of-digital-tools-199923 10/27/2020
Prioritizing Innovation Today A recent McKinsey survey of more than 200 organizations across various industries found that three-fourths believed that the fallout from the pandemic crisis will create significant new opportunities for growth in their industry, and the report shows that historically “companies that invest in innovation through a crisis outperform peers during the recovery.” Most agree that technology and innovation are the keys to “unlocking post-crisis growth”, yet few feel equipped to pursue these new growth opportunities. Of course, seeing the opportunities emerging from this crisis is not the same as being able to seize them. Fewer than 30 percent feel confident that they are prepared to address the changes they see coming. Today’s regulatory environment is one that supports innovation within the financial industry. Regulators encourage financial organizations to rely on technology to effectively and efficiently execute a compliance program. FINRA’s newly formed Office of Financial Innovation is an example of this. As a result, many organizations are taking this as an opportunity to implement new technologies to help streamline their compliance process. Technology is going to help these financial firms navigate and optimize their compliance programs moving forward... BUT many firms do not know where to turn. Our comprehensive understanding of the challenges compliance and supervision department’s face, as well as our proven ability to help firms meet their regulatory obligations is why SiteQuest Compliance has become a trusted partner and solution provider. One of our customers stated that: /
"We needed to come up with a better way to review our advisors' activity on the web because we weren't confident our manual internet searches were identifying everything we needed to supervise. After looking at other solutions, we selected SiteQuest Compliance and their Eagle Eye product. Sitequest Compliance was very accommodating, working closely with us to meet our company's specific needs. We have found our searches to be much more robust now. SiteQuest Compliance continues to be a great partner and is very customer focused!"
/
Let us show you how our compliance applications will help support and automate much of your supervision and policy requirements. See first-hand our applications at work. Contact us today for your personalized demo. The subtitle of the referenced McKinsey report says it all: “Prioritizing innovation today is the key to unlocking post-crisis growth.” Progressive compliance leaders who are turning to innovative technology and automation to manage their ever increasing regulatory demands while protecting their organizations and their customers from risk will have a competitive advantage after the crisis. Implementing the inventive applications from SiteQuest Compliance while automating much of your supervision requirements will help ensure a stronger and more trusted firm today, and for years to come. Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/innovation-in-a-crisis-why-it-is-more-critical-than-ever Related Articles: |
About James CellaJames Cella is the President of a growing and innovative compliance technology provider called SiteQuest Compliance. James is a customer-centric individual and focuses on building and sustaining positive and lasting relationship with his clients and partners. James and his family are "super fans" of University of Utah Football and have attended nearly every home game since 2002. Go Utes! Archives
November 2021
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
11/17/2021