In a world of ever growing automation and computer work, it's easy to find yourself staring at your computer screen (or screens) virtually all day long. While sometimes we feel that our brains might be fried from such activities, you're eyes also pay a heavy price in the form of eye strain.
Here are some helpful hints on how to avoid eye strain based upon the 20-20-20 rule.
It also helps to adjust your computer display settings. Adjusting the brightness, text size, and contrast of your display can help reduce eye strain and fatigue. You'll find that by doing so, your focus on your work will increase while your eye strain symptoms will start to decrease. Give your eyes a break and let Eagle Eye do the work for you. Eagle Eye is a leading-edge application that automates your processes for searching, documenting, reporting and ultimately supervising your associates’ web presence. Many of our clients have found that using Eagle Eye can reduce their workload by as much as 80%. See how Eagle Eye can help save you time from having to stare at your computer screen all day. Contact us today! FINRA recently sent out Regulatory Notice 20-30 regarding an increase in imposter advisor websites being created with malicious intent. These fraudsters are also calling and directing potential customers to use these imposter websites. Additionally these imposters may be using these sites to collect personal information from potential customers with the likely end goal of committing financial fraud. According to FINRA, some common features of these websites include:
FINRA suggests that “Member firms and registered representatives can take steps to identify these pages by conducting periodic web searches using registered representatives’ names.” The potential damage of an Imposter Website could be irreversible. What can you do?
Eagle Eye by SiteQuest Compliance has everything you need to monitor the internet and discover imposter sites and other compliance threats to your firm. Our multi-query processes, lexicon searches and dynamically designed algorithms provides more accurate search results saving you time and automatically alerting you to new search results concerning your registered representatives’ identity. Additionally, our system considers the domain name as it searches for results and scores them for potential reviews. Our easy-to-use workflows allow you to quickly review dozens to hundreds of search results in minutes. Many of our clients have found that with Eagle Eye they cut their workload by 80%. If you do discover an imposter website contact FINRA and the FBI immediately. See for yourself how Eagle Eye will support your compliance and supervision programs to monitor the web and discover these types of issues and more. Contact us today for your personalized demo. Eagle Eye also supports your firm’s adherence to regulatory requirements like FINRA Rules 2210, 3110, 3120, and 3270 by providing supervision of the internet. Read the Entire Regulatory Notice 20-30 8/10/2020
Issues Facing Compliance OfficersWhen speaking with our clients often times they share with us their supervision concerns and challenges. Among them are:
Eagle Eye monitors 50,000+ advisors across our customer base and has automatically alerted compliance supervisors on over 1.2M discoveries that warranted reviews over the past 3 years. This is broken down by:
Solutions That Eagle Eye Provides. Eagle Eye uncovers and supervises your advisors’ online footprint. It discovers social media accounts, websites, blogs, OBAs, DBAs, online profiles, events that belong or are about your advisors, allowing you to address issues prior to regulatory discovery or examination. Eagle Eye supports your firm’s adherence to regulatory requirements such as FINRA Rules 3270, 3110, 2210, and 3120 by providing supervision of the internet. Learn More Let’s face it, the coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we do business. Most of our industry is working from home, learning to balance conference calls and kids with questions that just can’t wait or dogs that must bark while on a Zoom meeting. We’ve all been there and have our moments.
Other things have changed as well, especially when it comes to marketing and advertising. This is especially true for financial advisors who have lost the ability to connect with clients at events, lunches, in office or at home meetings or simple introductions that come from face-to-face interactions. or years, many advisor’s businesses have primarily depended on these methods to connect with current clients and meet new prospects. Social distancing and stay at home orders have eliminated these options for many advisors who are now exploring new options to prospect and connect with people. So where are they turning? Like everyone else, advisors are turning to technology to increase their online presence with updated profiles while sharing fresh and timely content. I recently spoke to some of our clients about trends they were seeing regarding their advisor’s marketing and advertising behaviors since social distancing and stay home orders began. One compliance manager told me his firm has seen a 30% increase in advertising submissions as well as a significant increase in the use of approved social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Another client told me, “Advisors have ‘downtime’ and are now thinking a lot about marketing.” I followed up on how things have changed for our client as a result. “Don’t get me started on how much social media usage has jumped since this all began!” They have seen an increase of 25% to 30% in usage and a surge in new accounts being created by their advisors. Social Media usage is certainly on the rise. A recent survey showed that 32% of Americans said they have increased the amount of time they are using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Another firm told me that advisors who have typically shied away from social media, online profiles, websites, and other marketing technologies are now diving in for the first time. I was told, “Their (advisors) traditional lead generation tools aren’t available anymore. They now have time and are focusing on new ways to build their business.” Additionally, our clients are seeing a big increase in advertising submissions for recordings from Zoom/online meetings. Advisors are continually seeking guidance on additional options for communicating and marketing to the public. This all presents an increasing challenge in supervision and compliance, especially when there are growing limitations on human resources. That’s where our Eagle Eye technology comes in. Eagle Eye helps our clients uncover their advisors’ web presence, locating social media accounts, websites, articles, profiles, videos, OBA’s and more. Eagle Eye creates automated documentation of what has been reviewed, who did the review, and what the website looked like at the time of review, giving our clients and regulators a complete picture of the process. They use our system to discover and “clean up” situations where the use of these sites was done without approvals or monitoring in place. Another one of our clients shared with us that, “Thanks to Eagle Eye, it is helping me identify and address issues before they are brought to my attention by a regulator.” With our industry evolving, SiteQuest Compliance is a preferred partner when it comes to internet supervision and website management. Contact us today for your personalized demo where we can discuss your supervision concerns and see for yourself how Eagle Eye can support your internet supervision requirements. This spring FINRA announced the formation of the Office of Financial Innovation that will serve as a central point of coordination for issues related to financial innovations by FINRA member firms, particularly new uses of financial technology.
The goal in mind to further enhance FINRA’s ability to identify, understand and foster financial innovation in a manner that strengthens investor protection and market integrity. With 10 years of experience supporting our partners in their supervision and compliance with FINRA, SiteQuest Compliance is pleased about the dedication to financial innovation. SiteQuest Compliance has a long standing tradition of being a thought-leader. Working side-by-side with customers as we develop and improve our supervision applications to meet their needs. As more and more regulation burden is being put upon financial firms, SiteQuest Compliance is stepping up and serving as a trusted partner. Learn more about our applications. Eagle Eye is the first of its kind application that uncovers and supervises your advisors’ online footprint. It 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. SQWatcher stands for our SiteQuest "Watcher". Our SQWatcher application monitors and archives advisor websites 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. Policies organizes, manages and delivers your firms policies and WSPs. Our Policies application provides a clean, easy-to-use, easy-to-search and up-to-date experience for your advisors. Policies brings all of your procedures, policies, WSPs and other documentation into one place that can be accessed on both a desktop and mobile devices. Our customers have referred to our applications as “force multipliers” that exponentially expand their search and supervision capabilities. Firms are able to identify and address issues before they are brought to their attention by a regulator. “Innovation continues to pose new opportunities and challenges for our member firms and the broader financial services industry, and it is essential that we as regulators keep pace,” said FINRA President and CEO Robert W. Cook. With the even increasing trend for registered advisors to utilize technology to grow their online presence with updated profiles while sharing fresh and timely content. It is paramount that supervisors have support and a partner to help them with their ever increasing responsibilities. Let us show you how we can help. Contact us today to discuss your supervision challenges. Together we can lay out a plan to keep pace with technology innovations. Source: https://www.finra.org/media-center/news-releases/2019/finra-forms-office-financial-innovation-announces-haimera-workie-head 4/20/2020
AUTOMATED SUPERVISION: HOW ONE FIRM UNCOVERED COMPLIANCE RISKS THAT WERE PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTEDWe often speak with firms that use search engines like Bing and Google to assist them with the manual supervision processes.
One such firm recently added Eagle Eye to their supervision processes and quickly discovered immediate returns on their investment within the first three months of its use. What was that immediate benefit? Reduction of risk. Now that wasn’t the only benefit, as they saved a lot time as they went through the process. In fact, prior to using Eagle Eye they would often struggle to complete their supervision checks before the end of the quarter and would have to rush during the last two weeks of the period to get it all done. With Eagle Eye, they finished everything with three or four weeks to spare. But back to our original point, how did they reduce their risk? Our client not only found the process easy, but more importantly, they uncovered previously unknown compliance risks that were routinely missed by their manual search processes. Their new set up with Eagle Eye allowed them to scan the web in a manner unlike any they had previously experienced. With Eagle Eye’s multi-data point scanning capabilities, this client unleashed a virtual army of web crawlers who scoured the web with dozens and dozens of powerful queries. Then Eagle Eye analyzed all of the possible results for each monitored individual and presented the most relevant findings for their review. Our client not only found the process easy, but more importantly, they uncovered previously unknown compliance risks that were routinely missed by their manual search processes. With the revelations of these new regulator risks, our client was able take immediate action and take care of the issue prior to a regulatory event. The astounding part of the story is that our client was able to accomplish all of this without having to review hundreds and hundreds of results for each monitored individual or firm. In fact, they were able to do so by reviewing just 20 results per monitored individual during their quarterly review. So the big question looms, what are you missing on your manual searches and can you continue to allow those risks to go unnoticed and unchecked? 4/9/2020
Join Me in Taking an Afternoon NapOver the past month, as our clients have transitioned to working from home, several re-occurring themes continue to present themselves. Homeworkers are extremely busy with seemingly more to do than ever. Additionally, with increased workloads, increased hours at the desk, the stresses of isolation, and the overall COVID-19 pandemic, home workers are finding they are “tired all the time”. As someone who has worked successfully from home for the past six-year, I can certainly say that I’m feeling it as well.
As we all try to cope with these changes and fight the mental and physical strain of it all, perhaps now, more than ever, we all need a quick timeout and a quick nap. Ah, the afternoon nap. Many think that it is just for infants, toddlers, and slackers. But in truth, many of us are chronically sleep-deprived and the quickest of naps can do wonders. In speaking with one of my clients recently, she mentioned to me that her lunch hour is now her “nap hour”. Her “nappytime” as my mom would call it, has really helped her disconnect from the stress of the day and increased her productivity. Think of the lessons we learn about taking a break to sharpen our axes because a dull ax produces less chopped wood than a sharpened ax. Most experts recommend a nap of 10-20 minutes, any longer can lead to "sleep inertia" – grogginess that can be hard to snap out of. But how can a mere 20 minutes of daytime slumber really help? Consider the following: Provides a Memory Boost In one study, participants who napped regularly improved their performance on cognitive tests of memory and vigilance conducted in the subsequent two and a half hours. Improves Alertness The National Sleep Foundation reports that a NASA study on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34% and alertness 100% percent. While you may not be driving a spaceship, the foundation recommends a quick nap before driving your car to reduce the risk of a drowsy driving car crash. Enhances Creativity The mind loves a nap. Daytime sleep can, “enhance creative thinking, boost cognitive processing, improve memory recall and generally clear out the cobwebs," James Maas and Rebecca Robbins, co-founders of Sleep for Success wrote. Boosts Willpower Things can be tough when you’re tired, especially when it comes to matters of willpower which is often strongest in the morning when the brain is fresh. When you’re sleep deprived, your brain has an especially hard time ignoring distractions and controlling impulses. A mid-day “power nap” can reverse the usual willpower drain from morning to night,” adding that a nap can reduce stress, improve mood, and restore focus. Calms Your Nerves A University of Berkeley study found that a 90-minute nap can potentially keep you calm. When study participants were shown faces that expressed anger, fear and happiness at noon, and then again at 6:00 p.m. They found that the subjects were significantly more upset by angry and fearful faces later in the day; but not if they had a 90-minute lunchtime nap in which they experienced REM sleep. Lowers Blood Pressure A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that the “siesta habit” is associated with a 37% reduction in coronary mortality, possibly because of reduced cardiovascular stress associated with daytime sleep. While they admit that they don’t know whether the benefit came from the nap itself, or a reclined position, they concluded that this decrease in blood pressure may be why lower coronary mortality has been found in those who take naps. It’s Better than Coffee… or in my Case Diet Coke Researchers have found that while longer naps may cause grogginess, they also get in some good REM sleep which is where complex learning and perceptual skills are benefitted. In one experiment, sleep scientist Sara Mednick and her team directly compared caffeine intake (200 mg) with napping (60–90 minutes) and placebo on three distinct memory processes: declarative verbal memory, procedural motor skills, and perceptual learning. Overall, the nap improved performance across all three different learning areas, while caffeine impaired (or at least did not benefit) performance. Although the benefits of naps are many, not everyone has an easy time falling asleep in the middle of the day. For those, even just quiet momentary pause or meditation can do wonders. Simple breathing exercises – like breathing slowly can help slow down your brain and can be refreshing. Now, more than ever we need to take the opportunity to pause, refresh, and enjoy a short afternoon nap. Let me know (after my nap), how your work has improved because of taking the time to regularly nap. Sources: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00474.2007 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/napping/art-20048319 https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/napping https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/02/to-nap-or-not-to-nap/power-naps-are-the-best-remedy I've worked remotely for almost seven years now and our entire team here at SiteQuest Compliance telecommutes as well. If you're new to the work-from-home lifestyle, whether due to coronavirus or because you've managed to find a remote-based job, you'll likely need to change some of your habits and routines to make working from home a success. Here are a few things we’ve learned over the years to help us transition from in office work to working from home. Where to Start? When working from home I recommend creating a dedicated space for work. If possible work in a room where you can close the door. Closing a door helps shut out the outside distractions and also helps your family or roommates know that you are busy and not to be disturbed. Get Comfortable. Get a desk and have a clear and clean space to work. Your desk should be free from any “home” clutter such as home projects or kids assignments. Investing in a good chair is paramount. When working from home a majority of your time will be spent sitting down. If you don’t have a great chair and need to buy one, don’t scrimp on something cheap. Buy the best you can afford, as you’ll be spending lots of time in it. When you have a comfortable/supportive chair you will become more productive and have fewer aches and pains from sitting at your desk. Hunched over the coffee table, or sitting on the ground doesn't lead to a productive day. Find The Light. When I first started working from home my office was in a basement. It felt dark and cold. Sometimes I dreaded “going to work”. Today, I have moved my office upstairs. Positioning my desk near a window getting much more light from the sun. I have found that my productivity has significantly increased since I add more light to my work space.
The Kitchen Table Is Not Your Friend. If you are unable to have a room dedicated as your “in-home office” I would clear out a corner in a room with less traffic. Many people try to work from the kitchen table, which is often the central hub for a home. With people coming and going, distractions are high. You will get interrupted the most if you try to work from the kitchen, and trying to do calls while being in the center of the action is nearly impossible. Don’t get me started on sitting in table chairs for more than 45 minutes. Communicate Expectations with the People in Your Space. Set ground rules with other people in your home or who share your space for when you work. If you have children who come home from school while you're still working, they need clear rules about what they can and cannot do during that time. My children know that if they need me, a soft knock is how to get my attention. If I don’t answer the door or they can hear my voice, they know that I am on a conference call. Unless it is a real emergency then they are to come back a little later. Put Your Smart Phone Down. When we leave working from the office, the first problem is how do we communicate on the phone. Holding up a smartphone to your head for much of the day is not the answer. Many people like to use ear buds when talking on the phone with co-workers and clients. This is okay, but having VOIP options like RingCentral or Ooma for direct calls is better. For group meetings, we’ve used Zoom, GoToMeeting, Webex, Chime and Google Hangouts. Each has their merits of course, but most importantly, these options leave your hands free to type and take notes. Create a Routine. Start each work day around the same time each day. I rarely “go to work” without showering and getting ready for the day. Don’t work in your pajamas. Going through the motions of getting ready helps you mentally prepare for the work day. Set a schedule, and stick to it...a much as possible. Having clear guidelines for when to work and when to call it a day helps many remote workers maintain work-life balance. That said, one of the benefits of remote work is flexibility, and sometimes you need to extend your day or start early to accommodate someone else's time zone. When you do, be sure to wrap up earlier than usual or sleep in a bit the next morning to make up for it. Work in sections. Every hour or two take a 10-15 minute break. Get up and walk around. Get a drink or snack. During these short breaks go check on the kids and make sure that they are doing ok. Many times I will go outside and return some phone calls while I am getting some fresh air. By taking these short breaks you will become more refreshed when it is time to get back to work and your productivity will go up. Make It Personal. Above all else, figure out what works best for you. Sometimes the answer is apparent, but other times you might need some inspiration from other people who are in the same boat. A supportive community of remote employees does exist, whether you find them within your organization, or online through blogs, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Our entire team at SiteQuest Compliance has been working remotely for many years now and as a result, we continue to be available and ready to answer any of your questions or resolve any technical inquiries that might arise. Reach out to me personally at james@sqcompliance.com and let me know how I can help. Together we will continually discover ways to keep connected, and stay productive while working from our homes. A company from Virginia was expelled from FINRA membership for several violations. Some of the FINRA findings included; “That the firm included issuer communications on its website that it knew or had reason to know contained untrue statements of material facts or were otherwise false or misleading.” If a claim is filed against your company for posting statements on your website that the claimant said is misleading or untrue, are you able to defend your company? Do you have the documentation and reports to support your response? Our SQWatcher application is a web-based tool that not only archives your website, but also analyzes it each day. SQWatcher creates readily accessible backup files that can be easily retrieved to immediately identify and fix something that could have gone wrong. It’s also important to note that unlike other archival systems that may only take a screenshot to show you what the website “looked like” in the past, SQWatcher collects the actual HTML code for every page on your clients’ website(s). This provides the ability to not only view the page in question, but also browse the rest of the site as it appeared in the past as part of your review process. Are you responsible for monitoring one or more websites for your company? This can become a daunting task for any financial supervisor with the continual changes and updates. Are you notified when website information is updated so that you can review and ensure that the changes made online are correct? SQWatcher has taken this into account so that you are automatically notified. This same Virginia firm was also cited by FINRA for “not reasonably supervising its activities of those of its associated persons.” Our Eagle Eye product is the first of its kind application that is designed specifically to help the financial industry easily and effectively supervise the web. Eagle Eye automatically searches, documents, and reports on your web supervision responsibilities so you have everything you need to find and address issues before they are brought to your attention by a regulator.
Eagle Eye and SQWatcher working together are a force multiplier in your supervisory scheme. The cost of these applications are just a fraction of the cost a fine. Working in the finance industry for over 15 years SiteQuest Technologies is an innovative partnership for your firm. We work closely with your supervision departments making sure that our products are continually evolving and optimized with your concerns in mind. Contact us today to see how we can assist you in your web supervision needs. With our ever-increasing dependency on the internet to do business, the SEC's Division of Examinations issued an “Risk Alert” pertaining to the various forms of electronic messaging. These can include social media sites, YouTube, Yelp, blogs, articles, websites, and more, used by advisers for business-related communications. These activities require supervision which are often time consuming, and often done as manual internet searches. These electronic messages present added challenges for supervisors in complying with certain provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The Division of Examinations specifically mentioned three main areas for supervisors to address and encouraged firms and advisers to review their risks, practices, policies, and procedures regarding electronic messaging and to consider any improvements to their compliance programs that would help them comply with applicable regulatory requirements. “Running regular Internet searches or setting up automated alerts to notify the adviser when an employee’s name or the adviser’s name appears on a website to identify potentially unauthorized advisory business being conducted online.” With countless pages on the internet, where do you find the time to search and find your advisors online presence? Are you are utilizing a manual “Google” internet search? Do you get automatically notified when an advisor’s name appears on a website? Our Eagle Eye application is the leading-edge solution to help you find your advisors’ online footprint. Designed with built-in intelligence that searches the internet and sifts through the clutter bringing only the most relevant results to your attention. With our “Risk-Based Review Process”, one reviewer can supervise hundreds to thousands of advisors in very little time. Learn More “Regularly reviewing popular social media sites to identify if employees are using the media in a way not permitted by the adviser’s policies. Such policies included prohibitions on using personal social media for business purposes or using it outside of the vendor services the adviser uses for monitoring and record retention.” Currently most social media monitoring systems rely on the honor system. Firms depend on their advisors to tell them about their use of social media. How do you protect your firm if your advisors are not so forthcoming? With billions of active users on social media daily, how do you find that Twitter handle, YouTube Channel, or that Yelp listing, that is going unsupervised? Our Eagle Eye’s multi-query processes and dynamically designed algorithms can help you find this social media presence. Our risk-based approach to the workflow process has added system intelligence, enhanced lexicon capabilities, system learning, allowing Eagle Eye to automatically discover your riskiest advisors and alert your attention to where it’s needed. With Eagle Eye’s 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 on the account. Learn More “For advisers that permit use of … personal websites for business purposes, contracting with software vendors to (i) monitor the social media posts, emails, or websites, (ii) archive such business communications to ensure compliance with record retention rules, and (iii) ensure that they have the capability to identify any changes to content and compare postings to a lexicon of key words and phrases.” Our SQWatcher application is a web-based solution that automatically tracks, monitors, and archives your firms’ and advisors’ websites keeping you compliant. SQWatcher will identify and notify you of changes to website content and it has lexicon capabilities. This industry leading application brings you years of experience when it comes to web crawling, archiving and website analysis. Learn More
The Division of Examinations encouraged firms to “consider any improvements to their compliance programs that would help them comply with applicable regulatory requirements.” The innovative applications from SiteQuest Technologies bring great improvements to any firm’s compliance program. The Division of Examinations also encouraged advisers to stay abreast of evolving technology and how they are meeting their regulatory requirements while utilizing new technology. With the ever changing online platforms, trust a company with over 15 years of experience in providing leading-edge compliance and supervision applications, and website solutions for the financial industry. Over 40,000 advisors online presence is being tracked with Eagle Eye today. Contact us today to discuss the compliance issues you are facing when it comes to internet searches, the SEC, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Source: OCIE Risk Alert (reference page 4) Related Articles: |
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