As most of us know, new FSA rulings came into force at the start of last month, demanding that regulated investment firms record all mobile phone conversations relating to transactions in certain markets and store them for six months. These companies already
have to store landline conversations securely, and this new ruling will add a further burden to IT systems.
With the FSA itself admitting that the cost of putting recording and secure storage systems in place could add up to £10,000 per user each year with an ongoing cost of £2,000 per year per user, the total cost to financial organisations could be astronomical.
For a large investment bank like UBS, which employs approximately 6,000 people in the UK, perhaps a third of whom will have company-supplied mobile phones, this equates to an initial investment of £20m to record conversations with an ongoing cost of £4m
each year. This represents a significant burden for banks – albeit one seen as necessary in the wake of the imprudent investment decisions made by a small number of banks in the last few years.
However, add to this the ever-present tidal wave of ‘big’ data and these organisations are increasingly facing an insurmountable wave of information to be stored, accessed and managed. In many cases, this information can add value to organisations, but in
others, it needs to be stored and destroyed after the requisite period. This ruling clearly falls into the latter category, and companies should act sooner rather than later to put solutions in place which can cost-effectively record and store this data.