Archive for category FINRA
Belbey Blogs: Recent Guidance from the SEC on Filing Social Media
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Compliance, eDiscovery, Electronically Stored Information (ESI), Enterprise 2.0, Financial Services, FINRA, Securities and Exchange Commission, Uncategorized on April 2, 2013
Today’s blog is from Joanna Belbey, Social Media and Compliance Specialist at Actiance.
This month, the Division of Investment Management of the Securities and Exchange Commission issued the first in a series of “IM Guidance Updates” to clarify its positions on emerging legal issues. The first topic was social media.
Financial services firms are cautious by nature, and its both our experience and no surprise, that firms are taking a very conservative approach and are filing a huge amount of social media content with FINRA. The SEC is calling out that this may be unnecessary in a number of cases.
First some background. To ensure that communications from financial institutions are suitable, fair and balanced, the FINRA Advertising Regulation Department reviews the content of more than 100,000 communications every year. Some communications are submitted as required by FINRA rules, others are submitted voluntarily. Some are filed in advance, others within 10 days of publication. However in FINRA Rule 2210(c)(7)(M), effective February 2013, retail communications posted on an “online interactive electronic forum that is contained on a social media website” are specifically excluded from these filing requirements.
However, as firms have other filing requirements aside from FINRA, such as Section 24(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“1940 Act”) or Rule 497 under the Securities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”), SEC has seen fit to provide guidance on what should and should not be filed.
As the SEC states “Whether a communication need be filed depends on the content, context, and presentation of the particular communication”. So nothing changes there. This is simply reiteration. But now the SEC goes a little further. The more specific, the more likely it needs to be filed. And as an aside, whether the communications are filed or not, they still need to captured, supervised, archived, made e-discoverable like any other written communication for “business as such”.
The SEC provided some examples for clarity:
Do Not File
- Simple mention of a specific investment company or family of funds without discussion of merits
- Mention of word “performance” in connection with a specific investment company or family of funds without mention of returns
- Factual introductory statement / hyperlink to fund prospectus (ie, report available here)
- An introductory statement not related to investment merits of a fund that includes hyperlink to general information
- Response to an inquiry via social media that provides factual information and does not include merits of the fund
File (to meet requirements of Section 24(b) or Rule 482):
- Discussion of fund performance that provides specific mention of fund’s returns
- Issuer communications that discuss merits of an investment fund
The regulators continue to reinforce what we know to be best practices of social media. Pitching financial products, and discussing specific performance and returns is unwelcome on social media and may require pre-approval by a registered principal of the firm as well as filing requirements.
A better approach?
Provide compelling content, not sales pitches. Offer information that is informative, entertaining, and worth sharing. In a compliance-constrained industry like financial services, delivering compelling content can be challenging, but it’s by no means impossible.
The first step is to inventory your existing content to see what can be leveraged for social media. Start with pre-approved content that has been reviewed by the company’s compliance team for both corporate governance and regulatory compliance. Use this content to develop a library of interesting insights on investment strategies, wealth management, saving for college or retirement, and similar topics. These articles can provide a foundation for social media newcomers who are looking to start building their online networks.
This Spring is a great time to get started!
Other information you may find helpful:
Belbey Blogs: New FINRA Communications Rule 2210
http://blog.actiance.com/2013/02/13/belbey-blogs-new-finra-communications-rule-2210/
Division of Investment Management of the Securities and Exchange Commission Issues Guidance Update on Social Media Filings by Investment Companies
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2013/2013-40.htm
IM Guidance Update March 2013
FINRA Rule 2210
http://finra.complinet.com/en/display/display_main.html?rbid=2403&element_id=10648
Regulatory Notice 12-29 Communications with the Public
http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p127014.pdf
Regulatory Notice 10-06, Social Media Web Sites: Guidance on Blogs and Social Networking Web Sites (January 2010)
http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p120779.pdf
Guide to the Web for Registered Representatives
http://www.finra.org/Industry/Issues/Advertising/p006118
FINRA: RCA – March 1999 – Ask the Analust – Electronic Communications
https://www.finra.org/Industry/Regulation/Guidance/RCA/p015326
Belbey Blogs: New FINRA Communications Rule 2210
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Compliance, Financial Services, FINRA, Uncategorized on February 13, 2013
On February 4, 2013, as result of the systematic harmonization of NASD, NYSE and FINRA rules, FINRA Communications with the Rule 2210, went into effect. I wanted to learn more, so I attended the SIFMA Compliance and Legal Society, New FINRA Communications Seminar last week. It was an educational panel that include Kevin Zambrowicz (SIFMA), John Lajiness (Fidelity), Tom Pappas (FINRA), Holly Smith (Sutherland Asbill & Brennam) and Edward Sullivan (UBS).
The panel discussed that FINRA Rule 2210 brings some significant changes to the communications rule and that firms were expected to update their Written Supervisory Procedures accordingly. However, the rule was announced back in June, so firms have had plenty of time to get ready.
In fact, as Edward Sullivan, Head of Field Compliance at UBS, told the audience, his firm took the new rule as an opportunity to take a fresh look at the communications policies at his firm and make enhancements where appropriate.
So, how does FINRA Rule 2210 impact social media?
First some background. Back when FINRA issued Regulatory Notices 10-06 and 11-39, there were six major categories of communications under the existing NASD Rule 2210.The former six categories (advertisements, sales literature, correspondence, institutional sales material, independently prepared reprints, and public appearances) have now been replaced by three: Correspondence, Retail Communications, and Institutional Communications.
Let’s take a look at the two that impact social media:
Correspondence includes any type of written (including electronic) communication that is distributed or made available to 25 or fewer retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period. Like email, these communications do not require pre-approval, but, firms need to capture, retain and make business communications e-discoverable as well as demonstrate that they are supervising communications to meet suitability requirements. An example from social media might include an InMail on LinkedIn, a Message on Facebook, or a Direct Message on Twitter.
Retail communication includes any written (including electronic) communication that is distributed or made available to more than 25 retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period. A “Retail investor” includes any person other than an institutional investor, regardless of whether the person has an account with the firm. Communications that formerly qualified as advertisements and sales literature generally now fall under the definition of “retail communication.” These communications require pre-approval from a principal of the firm, plus all the record keeping and suitability rules apply. However, the rules specifically exempted pre-review any retail communication that:
- is posted on an online interactive electronic forum
- does not make any financial or investment recommendation or otherwise promote a product or service of the firm.
FINRA recognizes that due to the real time nature of social media, pre-review would inhibit interactive communications. Examples from social media include posts such as LinkedIn Updates, Facebook Status Updates, and Tweets on Twitter.
But, what about static portions of social media like profiles and links to content? Tom Pappas, Thomas A. Pappas, Vice President & Director, Advertising Regulation, FINRA, reiterated that the new rule codified existing guidance from 10-06 and 11-39 and that static portions of social media would still require pre-review unless they are exempted as above. In other words, if static content promotes a product or service, it requires pre-approval.
So, will this significantly change processes around social media? Probably not. As I mentioned in my blog, Belbey Blogs: What Are Other Firms Doing?, we have found that firms tend to pilot social media with pre-approval of all initial posts (such as tweets) and keep tight controls in place. Registered persons typically don’t have much latitude. However, once they begin to trust technology to safeguard their firms’ reputation and stay compliant, firms often begin to allow their reps to personalize content to varying degrees.
It just takes time. And some successes to accelerate the process.
For more information, see:
Full text of Communications Rules (32 pages)
FINRA Regulatory Notice 12-29 Communications with the Public (25 pages)
When the social party grows up, what if no one attends?
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Collaboration, Compliance, eDiscovery, Employee Behavior, Enterprise 2.0, Financial Services, FINRA, New Internet, Social Networking, Trends on February 6, 2013
Today’s post is a collaboration between Richie Etwaru, Director, UBS and Joanna Belbey, Social Media and Compliance Specialist, Actiance
Our last blog, “Before You Go Social, Check with Uncle Sam” covered the regulatory compliance, corporate governance, and legal requirements organizations must address before deploying social collaboration, or “internal social media.” In short, we suggested firms needed to develop policies and deploy or procure intelligent software to automate the capture, archive, retain, and supervise business communications across the enterprise.
We received material feedback. Readers reminded us that we’ve all been having the “compliance and technology conversation” around social media for some time. We aim to please so asked what’s next; we were told adoption is the biggest barrier to success. How do you make the changes to the corporate DNA to allow collaboration to flourish? In other words, how do you get adoption?
Apparently there is a party happening on grown up social networks but no one is attending.
Solving for Adoption
At the core of the thought leadership, we must look at training, sponsorship and design as three individual agendas solving for adoption. The diagram below shows three audiences for each agenda in a 3X3 matrix. The 3X3 matrix can serve as a maturity model as an organization progresses from top right of the matrix to bottom left.
Training, no one flyer fits all
There is no “one size fits all” training for employees to learn how to be “social” within the enterprise. At the one end of the audience spectrum, are employees who are adept at using social media in their personal lives. These are usually (but not always) entry-level employees. They may freely share personal experiences and thoughts with hundreds (thousands?) of their friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter. This set of employees may need to learn how to be “professionally social” within a corporate environment. There is unlearning, think first, and when in doubt resist, training needed.
In the middle of the audience spectrum training is need to inform the value of social beyond connecting people to people and content, sharing more, and the power of inviting others. For more on value beyond connecting people to people and content see “Solving for building backlash of Enterprise Social Networks” posted by Richie.
At the other end of the audience spectrum are employees who may use social media only occasionally or not at all. These are sometimes (not always) senior management. They may require a bit of handholding, and learning about specific benefits of why they should invest the time to learn something new. They also may be concerned about privacy. There is training needed to trust the platforms, learning the value of connecting to people, and benefiting by searching for and finding content in an entirely new way. This audience will not simply come to the party because they received a flyer, there is personal touch needed.
Sponsorship, they must come from everywhere
Successful deployment of social media (either internally or externally) requires commitment from senior management. However senior managers are unlikely demonstrators of sponsorship for social. Demonstrating sponsorship for social means using it, and many (not all) senior managers lack the time, commitment, and authenticity (don’t take it to heart, being authentic on social is an art, even if you are an inherently authentic person) to truly be social.
Sponsors of social medial must come from all tranches of the organization. The trusted employees, and employees that are opinion leaders can demonstrate sponsorship driving adoption. The trusted must create content, celebrate others, and invite opinion leaders (many times openly). Opinion leaders must share content of others, invite the unlikely senior managers (yes, sometimes openly as well), and advocate for the value of media other than text (such as videos) by using said new media. Finally, senior managers who are seen as unlikely adopters by the masses must be authentic. The unlikely audience should upload photos (authentic photos, not the boring corporate headshots), celebrate the opinion leaders, and share information created by the trusted.
This type of sponsorship and authentic adoption up and down the corporate ladder enables organizations to influence with sponsorship. After all, well attended parties are sponsored.
Design, customize the user experience
Inarguably, social can be separated into the believers, the voyeurs and the nay-sayers. The believers get it, and the current design of social works for them. Empower your believes, celebrate them, and hope that you can challenge them.
The voyeurs are the folks that come to the social platform, look around and leave (people that peek into restaurants or lounges and then keep going). Why do they do this? Many times it is because they “see no value when first logging into a social platform”. For us believes we ask, “really no value?” The fact is voyeurs do not see value when logging in initially, this is because they are not a part of any group, haven’t liked anything, haven’t created any content or commented or shared. Of course they see not value, the initial social experience is empty! Organizations must design social platforms to demonstrate value to voyeurs. We know who said voyeurs are, who they work for and who works for them, their peers constitute their implied social graph. We know what groups their “social graph” are in, what documents and topics their social graphs are interested in, and what questions their social graph have asked and answered. The design of the social platform should suggest a curated environment for the voyeurs on first login based on the activity and preferences of the implied social graph. When a voyeur logs in, if he/she accepts all curated suggestions, he/she will “LEAP” onto the social platform and see immediate value. This is an example of what we mean by enabling adoption with design.
Closing
This conversation can be detailed into a longer discussion, but at the heart of it, adoption is not unsolvable. There is a party happening on the grown up social networks and if no one is coming to the party we have to think like nightclub owners; guide with training, influence with sponsorship and enable a good experience with design.
Belbey Blogs: Before you go social, check with Uncle Sam
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Collaboration, Compliance, eDiscovery, Electronically Stored Information (ESI), Employee Behavior, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise IM, Facebook, Financial Services, FINRA, Guest Post, Legal, Social Networking, Unified Communications, Web 2.0 on January 30, 2013
Today’s post is a collaboration between Richie Etwaru, Director, UBS and Joanna Belbey, Social Media and Compliance Specialist, Actiance
It’s difficult to debate the value of installing enterprise social networks.
Richie Etwaru, a futurist and avid speaker, covered the current state, business value, and future thinking needed around the construct of what he phrases the #ENTSOCNET (an internal enterprise social network). Mr. Etwaru titled the piece Solving for building backlash of Enterprise Social Networks and covers the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation of the #ENTSOCNET. Installing an internal social network, driving, adoption and extracting business value as Mr. Etwaru describes, is complicated and difficult work. Leaders must ensure that said complicated and difficult work is being done under the auspices of regulatory guidelines.
There are regulatory compliance, corporate governance, and legal requirements organizations must address before deploying social. There however, is an impedance mismatch and some amount of misinterpretation between what the regulators consider enterprise social media, and what leaders in the enterprise consider to be enterprise social media. The spirit of the regulations suggest that whether an enterprise in installing an internal social network (what Mr. Etwaru describes as the #ENTSOCNET) for its employees only, or leveraging external social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter; all communications, messages, inboxes, comments, endorsements, DMs, tweets retweets etc. are governed under the regulations.
What Regulators want
More than 2 years ago, regulators of the securities industries began to issue guidance on how to use social media. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and others view social media, whether it’s external or internal, as just another form of business communications, such as email or instant messages. They remind us that it’s the content that is determinative, not the platform. Regulators also expect that firms demonstrate that they are supervising, or reviewing, a pre-defined portion of these communications. Other more general legislation may also apply such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the data breach notification laws (PCI, DSS).
What this all means
In short, whether internal or external, firms need to ensure that all business communications (or “business as such”) are captured, archived, supervised and made easily e-discoverable. There is nothing new here as this has been an evolution. First paper, then email, instant messages, now both internal and external social media, firms continue to be challenged to capture, retain and review a portion of all business records in whatever form they appear. As a first step, firms may use their existing email and instant message retention policies as a framework to develop policies for internal and external social media. Governing said policies is a separate and pronounced challenge.
Governance is key
Firms are increasingly committed to comprehensive corporate governance to avoid scandal and to comply with regulations. The development of sound policies and procedures before deployment is key, given the vast amount of data stored in most collaboration environments and the free ranging conversations among employees, contractors and even clients that can ensue, policies must be defined.
Specifically policies should address: records management (retention, litigation readiness, privacy), information management (making sure that records are tamper proof, and easily accessible), data deposition (disposal of data) and conflict management. Where possible, firms should automate policies with technology to protect their intellectual property, prevent the creation and distribution of inappropriate content and provide an audit trail of all activity to ensure accountability.
It’s a serious legal matter
When learning of pending litigation, firms must be able to preserve all records (“legal hold” or “ligation holds”) that may relate to legal action against the company, including records of social activity. According to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP), firms must meet discovery requests for paper as well as electronic documents (spreadsheets, slide decks), emails, posts, and conversations across social media in a timely fashion. Therefore, firms need plans and the means to retain and produce such data upon request. Email was new and difficult, social is not yet understood, complex and mindboggling.
Social, not my grandma’s email
Social media, due to its nature, adds complexity to these requirements as interactions occur over time. For example, a blog starts with an initial post, then readers may add comments, or change their minds and revise and delete their comments and the original author may respond. These interactions could go on for months in some cases. Firms should have the ability to produce all of these threads of posts, comments and replies “in context” to give meaning to the conversations. By providing context, firms may reduce litigation costs by reducing the number of hours required by attorneys to sort through records to determine the sequence of events and the true essence of the conversations. Preserving context requires intelligent software solutions.
What now
Enterprise-wide “social business” tools were designed to facilitate collaboration, not necessarily to meet the legal and compliance requirements of regulated firms or public corporations. They offer basic functionality to capture and archive communications, but not the reporting, contextual view of information, nor granular policy setting that may be desired. Firms are therefore advised that before deploying enterprise wide collaboration tools, they look to third party vendors to ensure their compliance requirements are met.
Collaboration, no pun intended
I reached out to Mr. Etwaru (whom I met a few years ago at a conference in NYC) and shared this perspective. His response is below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Joanna,
Your thoughts are spot on. From the regulators (who are doing a great job) point of view social, email, chat, etc. all carry similar risk and hence are metaphorically bucketed from a guidance standpoint. In the enterprise however, the risk with social is multiples higher for a multitude of reasons. One reason is employees learned of social in their personal lives where regulations are by and large absent. Hence, when using social in the enterprise (or in a commercial manner) employees (fallible as we are) tend to assume the same “free range” comes with social. The policy, governance and education you suggested is paramount, I could not agree more.
That being said …
However daunting all of this may be, the biggest risk is not using internal social media to break down silos and to unleash the intellectual power of the enterprise while driving innovation.
BTW, love your diagram, I can help you make it pretty
Hope this helps,
-R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Diagram above rendered by Mr. Etwaru,
-Joanna
Belbey Blogs: New Guidance on Using Social Media at Retail Banks
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Collaboration, Compliance, eDiscovery, Electronically Stored Information (ESI), Employee Behavior, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise IM, FFIEC, Financial Services, FINRA, Legal, Malware, Privacy, Retail banking on January 25, 2013
This week, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released “Social Media: Consumer Compliance Risk Management Guidance. The FFIEC is asking for comments within sixty days. You can download the 31-page document here.
Its release has created quite a stir within the banking industry. A comprehensive article appeared on TheFinancialBrand.com, “Regulatory Shocker on Social Media in Banking Coming Soon” that summarizes the guidance quite nicely.
But . . . what’s so shocking?
We’ve been having the same conversations in the securities industry for three years. And in those three years, firms have learned that there are three major areas of risk that need to be mitigated before deploying social media:
- Security: your IT department needs to prevent your firm’s proprietary and client information from being leaked out either inadvertently or maliciously from the enterprise. They also need to ramp up malware protection. That’s because social media users are susceptible to incoming threats as they view themselves as part of a tribe and tend to click on any link sent by a “friend.”
- Compliance and Governance: your legal and compliance departments already know that there are thousands of rules and regulations that govern the communications and advertising of publicly held corporations, firms in general, and bank specifically. Take the securities industry as an example – the banking regulators aren’t issuing new rules and regulations around social media. Social media is viewed as just another form of written communications. Your compliance department is therefore challenged to interpret existing rules as they apply to social media and to develop and enforce firm policies.
- Enablement: your executive team is concerned about productivity and the bottom line. Now that every employee can be the face of the business, you either have a powerful marketing tool or your worst nightmare. Employees will need to be trained on how to use social media effectively to meet the firm’s goals, such as nurturing existing clients, attracting new business, recruiting, and brand awareness.
However, during the last three years, we’ve learned that all these risks can be mitigated by strong corporate polices, backed up with technology and training.
So far, so good. Nothing new here. Or is there? In addition to what we’ve already seen from other regulators, the FFIEC specifically also calls for:
- Creation of policies to address negative feedback or customer complaints, even if a financial firm chooses not to actively engage in social media.
- Monitoring to protect the firm’s brand identity
- Due diligence and oversight for third-party vendors that firms may hire in connection with social media
And the one that I find most interesting:
- Processes and reporting to demonstrate how social media “contributes to the strategic goals of the institution.”
In other words, the FFIEC recommends that firms measure the ROI of social media.
It will be interesting to see the reaction that FFIEC gets from the industry. I just hope that the banking industry can use some of the key learnings from the securities industry to streamline the processes to reap the benefits of “getting social.”
For more details on how to deploy social media within retail banking, you can also check out Belbey Blogs: Upcoming Guidance for the Use of Social Media for Retail Banking from FFIEC.
Facebook Graph: The Supermarket Coupon Book of Social Selling
Posted by SarahActiance in Actiance, Employee Behavior, Facebook, Financial Services, FINRA, Social Networking on January 16, 2013
You can’t possibly have missed that yesterday, Facebook made a big announcement, with the news that Facebook Graph is to hit our social inbox in the very near future. Here at Actiance, our financial services customers who use social focus to a large extent on LinkedIn as their primary network. Asking as to why, there are a variety of answers:
- It’s viewed as the “professional network”
- There are less concerns about “more personal” content being shared
- It’s pretty much where their customers are.
I don’t disagree with what’s written above, but actually I think Facebook and Financial Services were made for each other. I fundamentally don’t think that I can separate the professional Sarah from the personal Sarah. I’m very Gen Y in my thinking like that (actually I’m still 17 years old in my head, despite what the wrinkles around my eyes tell you). And for that reason, I have got over my concern that my colleagues, work acquaintances and customers might see something about my personal life through any of my social networks. As I say as I begin each demo of Socialite, our social engagement solution – you may see something inappropriate from my friends, family or colleagues, but you’re all adults.
Facebook gives me a different relationship with folks than LinkedIn. Would I know of the foodie habits of one head of compliance? or the horse riding antics of a Gartner analyst? or the movie mania of @AugieRay if I didn’t have Facebook? More than likely not.
Transpose this specifically to financial services. We – and that’s the Royal we – share so much of our lives on Facebook, that it actually complements the provision of financial services products. It allows more suitable product to be provided to us – and suitable product provisions are a key tenet of regulators such as FINRA. It allows us to actually connect more as human beings, we’re social animals, and have been for eons. The transparency of Facebook is perhaps what worries us, but you know, we’ll get over that as we become more social in the virtual world.
So, and yes there is a point to this blog. While the complete functionality of Facebook Graph is yet to be revealed, and we look forward to the beta, its one more step towards being able to use the information that we all so readily share to work towards social selling. I look at it as the supermarket coupon book of social. You have my shopping habits down pat, so provide me with more suitable product. @Safeway has my number in this regard, so why not my Financial Services provider?
Can you have a social army without a general?
Posted by SarahActiance in Actiance, Collaboration, Employee Behavior, FINRA, LinkedIn, Social Networking on January 14, 2013
Sarah Carter
I argued recently in a discussion on LinkedIn that the future of social is the distributed team , that 17% of us trust a brand and 70% of us trust individuals in our network – the personal brands.
The growth of that personal brand is a key tenet in the paper that I put together in 2012 on the Six Principles of Social Success. It’s actually the second principle – immediately following that social needs to be an integrated element of your organizations business plan, not a stand alone solution.
The discussion came about, because of a great article from Erica Ayotte – who writes for Social Media Today – Erica wrote about the recent phenomena of “firing all the social media directors”, when the latest new big shiny thing comes along. Believe me you want to join this discussion, there are some great comments and dialogues going on.
I do very much agree that the growth of social is about the development of the personal brand, enabling the distributed team, empowering them, and making them brand ambassadors. This is where I believe we will see true value from social, the individual brand that we all engage with. That said. They’re the army, the foot soldiers, not the generals. Without a general you don’t have a strategy, a direction or a battle plan.
Strategy and battle planning takes experience and in the brave new world of social battle worn, campaign hardy individuals are absolutely what we need.
If you’d like to know more about what it takes to build a personal brand on social, then why not join me at 9 pacific on Thursday 17th Jan for 30 minutes and you can find out more – I look forward to seeing you there!
Belbey Blogs: Facebook Isn’t All That Scary For Business
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Employee Behavior, Financial Services, FINRA, personal v professional, Uncategorized on January 9, 2013
Today’s post is by Joanna Belbey, Social Media and Compliance Specialist at Actiance
When I first accepted my position at Actiance as the Social Media and Compliance Specialist, I was told that it was expected that I “friend” my manager and colleagues. Having come from FINRA, where we intentionally never “friended” each other on Facebook, the whole concept made me cringe. So I avoided it as long as I could. Finally I admitted my hesitation to a colleague, “I’m pretty goofy on Facebook” and she replied, “Don’t worry, we all are”. And by goofy, what I meant, is that I’m just my honest self. Movies that I like, events that I attend, great finds on shopping trips, photos of my bird, travel adventures, and even some silliness from time to time.
Her comment encouraged me to take the plunge. And you know what? Since then, I have really enjoyed learning about the personal lives of my colleagues. As I work remotely, Facebook has become my virtual water cooler. I learned about Sarah Carter’s passion for sailing in the freezing cold (brrr) or hurtling down a mountain in a bobslide at 80mph (yikes!), or about a Lisa Stokoe’s baking (yum) and sewing adventures, and even my shared passion for all things Star Trek, with Jeff Podraza.
Since then, I’ve even “friended” business associates and former colleagues. I now know a very serious financial services journalist loves her pugs, that an esteemed social media strategist, Augie Ray, is a movie buff like me, and that the chief compliance officer of a major broker dealer has a passion for fried food. I even went back and “friended” many of my colleagues at FINRA and was delighted to discover how multi-faceted they really are. Who knew?
For me, there really is no longer any bright white line between my personal and business life. And I think that’s the way the world is going. In my travels at Actiance, I hear many stories from clients whose financial advisors and agents use Facebook to initiate and nurture relationships with clients. After all, for them, life events (engagement, wedding, new baby, new job, illness, parents in assisted living, etc) are opportunities to provide more suitable product to their clients. And what better what to learn about the lives of your clients than on Facebook?
Learning about the personal lives of my colleagues, clients and business associates is highly entertaining and enhances my life every day. And I think it makes it easier to work together knowing that you have some common ground. After all, we all want to work with people we like, right?
Belbey Blogs: Overcoming Compliance Challenges to Social Media
Posted by belbey in Actiance, Compliance, Financial Services, FINRA, Social Networking on January 3, 2013
Today’s post comes from Joanna Belbey, Social Media and Compliance Specialist at Actiance.
As human beings, our behavior hasn’t changed for centuries. We naturally socialize. Socializing our buying decisions is something that we have done for centuries. Social media simply allows us to connect with those wider social groups—geographically—making our social groups more potent as our social interactions become public through social media.
As social media continues to evolve, so too does its usage and the regulations surrounding those professions adhering to compliance requirements. Starting in 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued regulatory notices to provide guidance regarding the use of social media in the financial services profession, specifically Notice 10-06 and then in 2011, Notice 11-39.
Why haven’t more financial services firms embraced social media as part of their sales and marketing programs?
Some of the key reasons are regulatory.
FINRA, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and several other regulatory bodies outside the U.S., each impose strict guidelines and rules on the use of all electronic communications, including social media. This demands careful oversight of online communications and activities to ensure that financial advisors aren’t using social media channels inappropriately or without retaining records of all communications.
A sampling of Social Media-Related Notices and Rules
- FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-06: Summary: Static content on social media sites and blogs are considered advertisements and need to be pre-approved. However, interactive content, like chat rooms, is considered non-static and does not require pre-approval by a registered principal prior to use.
- FINRA Regulatory Notice 11-39: Summary: To answer some of the questions raised by Notice 10-06, this notice clarifies that it’s the content of the communication rather than the channel that is being reviewed. Firms are also subject to the “adoption” and “entanglement” theories regarding third-party posts, and that business communication through personal devices must be supervised and recorded.
- NASD Rule 3010: Summary: Members must establish, maintain, and enforce written procedures for communications of registered representatives
- IRS Circular 230: Summary: Tax professionals could be subject to penalties regarding written advice, including their use of social media such as blogs, and Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter comments.
- New FINRA Rule 2210 (effective February 2013): describes various communications categories (institutional, retails, correspondence), and approval, review and record keeping requirements for each
- SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4: require written, enforceable retention policies, searchable index, viewable and readily retrievable, offsite storage, and storage of data on WORM (write once, read many) optical media
In addition to making sure they adhere to the rules and regulations, firms are also concerned about the risks of data leakage, malware, and viruses. However, as new technologies have emerged to address regulatory and security challenges, financial service firms are demonstrating to their senior management that the risks of using social media may be mitigated.
What it all boils down to is this. Before engaging in any social media activity for your firm, be aware of the regulations surrounding social media in a professional services firm. Take them into consideration and demonstrate that you have taken a thoughtful approach. Put the review process into place. And most importantly, identify an influential principal of the firm who will champion the effort. It’s worth the effort. As firms slowly adopt social media within their distributed teams as a means to reach out to clients and customers, they are beginning to see increases in new customers and revenues that more than offset their initial concerns about the risks.
Belbey Blogs: Upcoming Guidance for the Use of Social Media for Retail Banking from FFIEC
Posted by belbey in Compliance, FINRA, Social Networking on November 5, 2012
In an effort to distract myself from the heartbreaking impact of Hurricane Sandy across the New York and New Jersey area, I thought I’d do a bit of research on how regulators of the retail banking industry are handling social media.
As a former FINRA employee and an avid attendee of compliance conferences and events, I’m familiar with guidance from FINRA and the SEC for the securities industry. However, retail banking is governed by a whole other alphabet soup of federal authorities. Regulators include the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
However, like the securities industry, banks are interested in using social media to provide a personal touch to their customers. Even the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently ceased paper distribution of news and issuances in favor of email, Facebook and Twitter.
In response to the retail banking industry’s request, the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) is coordinating the activities of these multiple federal banking regulators to craft social media guidance. FFIEC plans on publishing these guidelines in the Federal Register before the year’s end. If you are not familiar with the FFIEC, the Council was established in 1979 to promote uniformity in the supervision of financial institutions.
A source at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), says that once guidance is published in the Federal Register, the FFIEC expects substantial feedback from the industry and will accept comments for sixty days. From what I hear, the guidance will describe how existing rules and regulations impact social media. And as the members of FFIEC recognize the rapidly shifting nature of social media, they are trying to avoid specific recommendations. Their intent is to offer principal-based guidance that may be useful over time. Guidance may include, but, not be limited to interpretations of rules regarding Deposit Accounts, Consumer Lending, Payment Systems, Truth in Savings, Disclosures and more.
Don’t want to wait until possibly Spring of 2013 to get started? Those who wish to proceed with social media now, may want to begin to interpret how existing rules may impact the use of social media at retail banks. For example:
- individuals need to be verified as customers for advice to be provided
- liking or retweeting certain articles may be seen as “providing investment advice” and subject to review
- marketers to comply with advertising guidelines to avoid misleading or inaccurate communications
- disclosures need to be considered
- records of electronic communications require retention
- and privacy, confidentiality and customers’ data needs to be protected.
Additionally, there are also wider regulatory concerns such as Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) , Red Flag Rules and Privacy of Consumer Financial Information to work through.
While you wait for Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC)’s guidance, you might also find it helpful to read what regulators within the securities industry are saying. We’ve found that guidance from regulators (FINRA, SEC, IIROC, FSA, SEBI) tends to fall along similar lines: social media is considered as just another form electronic communications and should be treated as such.
FINRA-
FINRA Regulatory Notices:
- 10-06 – Social Media Websites Guidance on Blogs and Social Networking Web Sites
- 11-39 – Social Media Websites and the Use of Personal Devices for Business Communications
- 12-29 – Communications with the Public
- FINRA’s Guide for the Web for Registered Representatives
Securities and Exchange Commission-
Although this seems like a lot to wade though, you’ll see it’s worth the effort. Financial institutions that deploy social media are reaping the rewards of enhanced customer service at lower costs, broader brand recognition and an increase in new accounts and revenues.
On a personal note, as compliance in retail banking is a new area for me, I particularly welcome your insights. I would also welcome suggestions for additional resources for me to read or conference or webinars to attend. And finally, here at Actiance, we’ll be drafting a White Paper on regulations for the Retail Banking Industry. Look for that soon.
