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Eagle 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. 9/20/2021
PART TWO OF NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH Continually Making Sure Your Monitoring Records and Documentation are in Order
This is not a preparedness matter to take lightly. Just last November FINRA fined a Tier One Company $2.6 million for failures in required electronic records and email retention. Read the full report. The benefits of maintaining accurate, reliable and usable records can help to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your business. It will ensure your firm is able to access information when required and meet all accountability and compliance requirements. Below are some suggestions that are beneficial in establishing and making sure that an effective record keeping and documentation system is in order when you are monitoring your associates' web presence. Planning. Establish what processes are needed for monitoring records to be effectively maintained and how this will be achieved. Planning a monitoring process will help you maintain a record keeping system that works for your firm and provides clear expectations for supervisors and compliance officers. Consistency. To make it easier for compliance staff members to do their job, have information collected and stored in a consistent way within your firm's network; all staff should follow the same policies and procedures. Communication. Have all your staff made aware of, and ensure they understand, the FINRA general supervision requirements. Verify that all supervisors know and follow the record keeping policies and procedures established by your firm. By communicating expectations clearly, you will benefit from consistent record keeping standards. Modify. Don’t be afraid to modify your record keeping system if you find a more efficient way to achieve results. Regular reviews of your record keeping systems will keep them up-to-date and operating in a way that is beneficial to your firm. Responsibility. Know your responsibilities—what to record, how to maintain records and how long they should be kept. Having accurate and reliable records during an audit will allow you to easily confirm your firm’s compliance. Review. Encourage staff to provide feedback on how the monitoring record keeping system is working and how it could be improved. In doing this, you may gain valuable suggestions that will bring continuous improvement to your administrative records, improving the efficiencies of the practice. Embrace technology. Regularly investing in technology will help improve the efficiency of your general supervision monitoring requirements. Your staff will appreciate any efforts made to improve and automate the task of keeping records, giving them additional job satisfaction. Additionally, removing manual steps not only makes the record keeping process more efficient, it also makes the records uniform and reduces the risk of human error. Our clients have found that Eagle Eye’s automated reporting features saves them valuable time. With just a click, you will have everything you need including when a result was found, who reviewed it, comments that were made and time stamps on every action taken on the account. From a regulatory point of view, with Eagle Eye’s automated screenshots you will have the full story of what content looked like at the time of review, giving you everything you need to respond to a regulator. Supervising the web doesn’t have to be difficult! Let us show you how Eagle Eye is a more effective solution. Contact us today for a demo. 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.
9/1/2021
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR AN AUDIT? Did you know that September is National Preparedness Month? Emergencies can happen at anytime and anywhere. Ready Business is a resource that assists businesses in developing a preparedness program by providing tools to create a plan that addresses the impact of various hazards. Preparedness is the key to ensuring that your business will continue after a disaster.
In light of this national observance, our blog is focusing on preparedness and preparing for an audit. We understand that the arrival of FINRA examiners at your firm may cause some concern—especially if it’s your first examination, or if it has been a while since your last audit. How can I help my firm prepare for a FINRA audit? Tell your staff about the audit. This also helps those staff members that FINRA needs to contact, identify and prepare the records and information that they need to have available when the audit begins. Review past audits. If your firm has been audited in the past, it is worth reviewing the last audit report. Often past audits have recommendations for improvements. In conducting routine audits, FINRA’s purpose is to identify opportunities for improvement, which are in the best interests of the firm being audited and their clients. Identify an audit contact person who can act as a liaison person to work directly with the auditor. This staff member should be responsible for ensuring that auditors have access to records and files or any other resources needed to complete the audit. This person acts as the main point of contact as the audit progresses so that FINRA can continue to keep your firm informed of how the work is going. Your firms’ contact person may find it useful to schedule meetings with FINRA periodically throughout the audit process to help monitor how things are progressing. This is a good way to facilitate communication, resolve issues on a timely basis, and correct any misunderstandings. Cooperation is essential to a successful audit. Depending on the type of exception, if your firm can demonstrate swift corrective action, it may not appear in the final Examination Report. Assemble appropriate and current information about your firm that you think might help FINRA in gaining an understanding of your administrative structure, nature of your operations, and knowledge of employee roles and responsibilities. Other information that might be helpful to have on hand could include key procedures or policies, organization charts and financial information such as budgets and sample management reports. Hot Topics. FINRA is really focusing on social media and cyber security preparedness as part of their audits right now. Are you prepared to respond (with proper documentation) to a regulator when they inquire with regards to your supervision preparedness? Are you finding everything that you are required to monitor? Do you know for certain that your employees have properly disclosed all OBAs? Being prepared to address these "hot topics" will help in the event that you are audited. A FINRA audit is an excellent opportunity to take a thorough look at the risks impacting your business and the controls put in place to mitigate those risks. Please note that these are only general steps recommended to prepare for an audit. We recognize that specific steps and information requests that are unique to your firm will be identified and communicated to you as you interact with auditors. Source: FINRA.org |
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