Theta Lake Blog

Susannah Hammond

Susannah Hammond
Susannah Hammond is senior regulatory intelligence expert for Thomson Reuters with more than 25 years of wide-ranging compliance, regulatory and risk experience in international and UK financial services. She is co-author of "Conduct and Accountability in Financial Services: A Practical Guide" published by Bloomsbury Professional.
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Recent Posts

Why Communications Compliance is a Top Priority for Contact Centers

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Apr 25, 2024 8:30:00 AM

Contact centers are, by definition, all about communication. And the richness of the communication has been enhanced immeasurably by the deployment of unified communication and collaboration (UCC) tools with their wide range of features and functionality. That said, firms have not always been able to take full advantage of much needed functionality due to potential compliance concerns which have led some users to switch features off. UC providers are alive to the need from customers and are prioritizing helping by providing more ways to solve recordkeeping and supervision needs - the recent news from Zoomon its approach serves as a positive example on what firms can (and should) expect from their communication and collaboration providers.

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Enforcement Roundup - Regulators Remain Focused on All Aspects of Recordkeeping

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Apr 2, 2024 8:02:15 AM

WATCH SHORT SUMMARY VIDEO

What does the fining of a major Wall Street firm for trade surveillance failures, the holding to personal account of the CEO of a UK bank, the impact of cyber security incidents at a pair of broker dealers and another two firms being held accountable for off-channel communications all have in common? They all represent failures of one or more aspects of upstream recordkeeping with the consequent downstream inability to meet compliance obligations.

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Top 5 Data Protection Tips For 2024

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Jan 26, 2024 7:30:00 AM

Data protection is, and will remain, a key priority for regulated firms and regulators alike and is an even greater focus in Data Privacy Week. For companies subject to multiple overlapping global privacy regimes, there is a patchwork quilt of regulation and legislation covering the demands of government regulations regarding sensitive data and data protection, such as theEU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  


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FINRA and SEC Set Out Supervisory Expectations on Communications Compliance

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Jan 24, 2024 9:30:00 AM

2024 isn’t even a month old and already two U.S. regulators have updated their expectations on communications compliance. Firms need to be under no illusions - recordkeeping is, and will remain, a key regulatory focus.

WATCH SHORT SUMMARY VIDEO
Against a backdrop of $2.6bn+ fines and continuing enforcement action against both firms and individuals, U.S. regulatory expectations on communications compliance are continuing to evolve. Both the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have updated their stance, approach and expectations as to good and better practice when it comes to communications compliance. U.S. firms in all sectors of financial services would be well advised to review and consider the updated supervisory approach.

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The Failure to Capture Digital Communications Gets Personal

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Jan 11, 2024 9:05:00 AM

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The last couple of years have been full of headlines not only of firms being fined for failing to capture digital communications but also of firms themselves taking action against employees for breaching internal policies on the use of unmonitored channels. Wall Street firms in particular are reported to have demoted and exited personnel as well as clawing back bonuses and other remuneration for failing to adhere to the required approach to recordkeeping. 

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From Voice to Email Communications - U.S. Regulators Issue More Fines for Recordkeeping and Supervision Failures

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Dec 12, 2023 9:00:08 AM


SHORT SUMMARY VIDEO

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SEC Exam Priorities for 2024 Focus on Firm’s Ability to Evidence Compliance

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Oct 30, 2023 8:00:29 AM


SHORT SUMMARY VIDEO
The SEC exam prioritiesfor 2024 give an essential insight into likely practices, products, and services which will be the focus of the Division of Examinations in the coming year. The priorities are those that pose emerging risks to investors or the markets, as well as examinations of core and perennial risk areas. Given the now more than $2.6bn of fines imposed for recordkeeping failures, it is fair to say that unmonitored communications channels and the incomplete capture of required records will continue to be key supervisory considerations for all U.S. financial services firms.

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SEC Risk Alert Reiterates Focus on Recordkeeping

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Oct 16, 2023 8:05:46 AM

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Risk Alert provides additional information regarding the Division of Examination’s risk-based approach for both selecting registered investment advisers to examine and in determining the scope of risk areas to examine. It sets out the documents and information that staff will initially request as well as additional requests for information and documents from the adviser the staff may request as the examination progresses. Firms need to be aware that electronic communications–with all of the modalities such as emojis, GIFs, additions and deletions–are specifically included in the regulator’s risk-based approach.

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Recordkeeping Enforcement Action Spreads to Brokers, Investment Advisers and Credit Rating Agencies

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Oct 5, 2023 8:28:41 AM

SHORT SUMMARY VIDEO OF THE BLOG

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Trading Futures Commission (CFTC) have widened their investigations and fined another series of firms for recordkeeping failures. As with previous recordkeeping breaches, the firms concerned failed to stop employees, including those at senior levels, from communicating using unapproved communication methods, including messages sent via personal text and WhatsApp. The total monetary penalties imposed is now more than $2.6bn.

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Securing Tomorrow's Communications: The Power of RingCentral and Theta Lake

Posted by Susannah Hammond on Sep 20, 2023 8:34:01 AM

Co-author:Matt Lehman, Industry Principal, Financial Services, RingCentral

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Theta Lake provides security and compliance for modern collaboration platforms using frictionless partner integrations with Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral, Slack, Zoom, and more. Using patented machine learning and NLP, Theta Lake detects risks in: video, voice, chat, and document content across what is shared, shown, spoken, and typed. Those risks are surfaced in an AI-assisted, patent-pending review workspace that adds consistency, efficiency, and scale for security and compliance teams. All of this enables organizations to safely realize the full ROI of a collaboration-first workplace while reducing the cost of security and compliance.

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