Migration - A compliance market on the move

We've noticed recently that a lot of users from existing client firms are now appearing as potential clients in new firms where they may have recently been hired. This is great for our overall penetration in the market but we'd like to provide some kind of incentive for their new employers to subscribe these practitioners to a service they are clearly familiar with. So we're soon launching a migration, or loyalty program. Tricky to do this without somehow sounding like we're promoting people leaving their current employer, which clearly we are not.

One thing is clear - the market is on the move. Firms are finally re-hiring and many of our old users are back, somewhere new and wanting to get re-connected to the Complinet compliance information service.

We've missed them and want them all back. We'll announce our migration plan along with some new promotional pricing in the coming weeks to keep our loyal customers with us, where ever they've landed. Welcome back! Read More!

Regulating social networking

We're all on a wide number of social networking sites. We follow on twitter, get linked in with business contacts and befriend people on the world's largest on-line community; Facebook - a community larger in population than many countries. There are of course dangers, reputational risk, false claims and so on. Financial services firms are finding themselves under increased pressure to control the flow of information through these channels and where email and IM were the areas for focus for records and policy management owners, those days seem like childs play to controlling the many postings on the world-wide web. Complinet have put together a free event to help guide firms to understand the implications and ramifications. It's amazing but we've had more respondents and registrants to this one topic than any other. So if you're in compliance and trying to meander through the maze of regulatory obligation as it relates to social networking - click here to sign up and listen. Fascinating stuff. social networking Read More!

Survey finds the bonus culture needs to change

Complinet conducted a survey recently on how the bonus culture within banks is perceived by others both within and outside of the financial services market. It shows that while risk taking has reduced somewhat the majority of firms do not feel that the right controls are in place or that the bonus culture has shifted sufficiently so as to change behavior. Complinet has maintained that eliminating the bonuses is of course unrealistic but Compliance people would be helped immensely if the payouts were linked to longer term prosperity inside the firms and perhaps KPIs related to the viability of the various products sold and their adherence to the rules and regulations that govern them. See the interview from today's FT (Financial Times) for a little more or click on the survey link above to get the full survey results.

There continues to be some concern that the market recovery may quickly fade the memories of some (it's the party without the hangover) and that the US' focus on health reform together with the UK's political shift will overtake what are a set of urgent reforms. On the positive side, we have seem some firms (particularly the larger ones) take very proactive steps to build new controls linking rule changes directly with the market and products sold (operational compliance). Read More!

Catching the customer

About 4 months ago Complinet built out a customer advisory board in the US and UK. We'll add more in the Middle East and Asia this year. Any vendor that launches products to market should find as many ways to catch client feedback and incorporate that into roadmaps and overall product direction. For any market that is driven by government or regulatory events this is really important because customers will fully understand the pain and know the internal challenges they face. Our advisory groups focus on our larger clients such as UBS, Citi, Prudential, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley but we'll plan forums for smaller firms in April. I often feel that we don't get enough client time. It's always extremely valuable and these forums along with our customer summits which are annual make sure there is an authenticity in our product direction. We actually employ lots of former compliance professionals, former regulators and attorneys but clients are living the pain daily and it's their feedback that drives our activity. So, I highly recommend these forums, captured feedback and loops back into a structured product roadmap for any innovative company. Read More!