Compliance Archives

If you are a financial services company, then you must have heard of the Dodd-Frank Act. It’s important to note, the Act is a complex set of rules and regulations that can be a little difficult to understand. Here we will look specifically at call recording compliance under the Act.

Dodd-Frank Act: The Basics

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — Dodd-Frank in short — came into effect in 2010 through the Obama administration. Named after sponsors Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, this set of regulations and restrictions was created as a response to the 2008 financial crisis which saw the fall of many large financial establishments. Due to the crisis, investment banks, commercial banks, government-sponsored companies failed and needed government support to recover. And so, the Dodd-Frank Act works towards protecting financial institutions from possible failure.

Call Recording Compliance Requirements

To do so, it lays down rules and restrictions that financial institutions of any kind ought to follow. These regulations aim to:

Increase transparency and promote stability
Protect taxpayers by putting an end to bailouts
Change the idea that any institution is “too big to fail”
Protect clients and customers from receiving fraudulent and abusive financial advice.

As stated, the intent behind the Dodd-Frank Act is to encourage financial services companies to keep records of transactions and by extension, protect consumers. And these regulations apply to business communications as well. They ask financial businesses to track and record communications between the company and its clients. Call recording regulations under the Act require institutions to:

Record conversations across all communication mediums, that is phone, text, email, video, etc.
Store records for a duration of the transaction and five years after
Timestamp all records
And organize all records to make them easily accessible

With these regulations, finance-related transactions and correspondences are monitored and banks become more responsible for their behavior.

Do You Need to Comply With These Laws?

What such a reform tells us is that businesses, big or small, can incur damages and take a downward path. And a way to protect or assist these businesses is through record-keeping and transparency. So, if you are a financial services company, like a commercial or investment bank, it is recommended that you invest in call recording for your office communication system and record all incoming and outgoing calls. Make sure you are aware of local and state laws regarding consent for recording calls.

How To Record Calls

There are a few different ways you can record calls. You can either get a recording device, record through a computer app, or get the tool from your phone service provider. For example, many companies use a virtual service provider for their business communications. And such services come with added features and tools like call forwarding, SMS capabilities, and of course, call recording.

Using a recording device or your computer is a good idea. However, these may not provide enough storage space to store all recordings. And high-quality recording equipment does not come cheap. This is why cloud-based solutions exist. The call recording service from Global Call Forwarding is cloud-based and records 100% of incoming calls. You can adjust this setting to a percent, if you prefer. Additionally, you can also get outbound call recording for your outgoing calls. Store recordings as MP3 files and access them in the future. Additionally, you can set them to be stored for as long as 6 years.

Start Recording Calls

Ready to get call recording for your bank today? You can do so easily with Global Call Forwarding, just follow these steps:

Visit our homepage https://www.globalcallforwarding.com/ to sign up.
On the left-hand side, follow the prompts to select a new number or port your existing business number.
Then, on the right side, enter contact information for where you want to forward your calls.
Click on “View Rates.”
Look through the different plans available and pick one.
Scroll down to see additional features that you can add to your plan. Select “Add Call Recording.”
Scroll further to add your information, accept the Terms and Conditions, and complete your purchase.
You now have a business phone system with call recording.

Add Call Recording to Your Business Phone System Today

Keep your bank safe from fraudulent or inappropriate activity by complying with the Dodd-Frank Act and recording important transactions. To learn more about call recording, contact us today!

Customer call centers are the bedrock of large businesses’ customer service. Many businesses set up call centers to take incoming calls from customers who need help or have questions about their products or services. While some businesses only use their call center to receive calls, others also use it to make outbound calls for the purpose of soliciting new clients.

Call Center Laws

It is important to know that there are specific federal laws that affect the operation of call centers. These include the Telephone, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Consumer Protection Act, and the U.S. Department of Labor Hourly Worker Requirements.

While some of these may seem surprising, it is important to know that many call center managers are not aware they can be in violation of call center regulations.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Call centers that are making outbound calls to solicit sales must follow the regulations mandated by the TCPA. This body regulates the times that telemarketers may call and their persons they may call.

Call centers must not call residential numbers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.
During each call, the customer service agent must tell the recipient which company he or she represents and must also give his or her name and phone number.
Call centers must abide by the regulations of the Do Not Call Registry.
Auto-dialed and automated or pre-recorded calls may not be made for telemarketing purposes without the recipient’s written consent.

The TCPA permits individuals to file lawsuits and claim damages if a call center violates the regulations.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

All the main U.S. health insurance companies utilize customer service call centers. Their purpose is to handle inquiries from current or prospective insurance policy subscribers as well as dealing with provider inquiries, verifications of eligibility, and claim authorizations. All call center workers dealing with patient information must at all times adhere to the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA was passed in 1996 and mandates the privacy of each individual’s health information. The act is designed to protect patients and their medical information. Call center staff are not allowed to discuss the details of private patient information with anyone other than the patient or a person whom the patient has authorized. Any call center that violates HIPAA regulations is subject to legal action and penalties on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Contractual Requirements

Each individual client to whom a call center provides service is classed as a separate contract. Call centers must, at all times, follow federal mandates for these clients, as well as following the client’s specific requirements. For example, a contract may specify that calls are to be answered live instead of being routed through an automated system. Another contract may request that calls are answered within a specific time frame. If a call center is unionized, it is also required to meet union regulations as well. All specific contractual obligations must be followed at all times.

U.S. Department of Labor Hourly Worker Requirements

Usually, call center employees are paid at an hourly rate. For call centers in the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor administers the Fair Labor Standards Act, which states how workers who are paid hourly must be treated. The employer is required to pay at least the national minimum wage unless the state minimum wage is higher. Furthermore, hourly employees who work more than 40 hours per week must be paid an overtime rate, the amount of which should be of one and a half times their normal hourly wage.

It is up to the call center manager to ensure that there are enough people in the call center to handle the expected call volume at any given time. Call center managers often use virtual software to predict how many call center agents will be needed to handle the projected volume in half-hour increments. This helps ensure that workers get their required break times.

Regulations Regarding Recording Customer Calls

If you record customer calls and you are taking information about the customer’s credit cards, then you need to know that this is against PCI-DSS standards, which prohibits the storage of the CVV2 number (the three- or four-digit number listed on the back of the card). This number may not be stored at any time or in any form even at a high level of encryption. If your company is recording calls and you are not stopping call recording when the customer gives out the CVV2 number, then you are violating PCI-DSS regulations. The simple solution to this problem is to pause the voice recording when the customer is inputting their credit card details so that the call center agent can enter it manually and it will not be stored in the recording.

Regulations Regarding Outbound Calls

Many companies have a recorded announcement stating that incoming calls may be recorded for the improvement of customer services.

However, few organizations provide this information when making outgoing calls to customers. And even fewer take into consideration that they are recording their employee’s conversations as well as those of their customers. At this point, it should be noted that if you are going to record a telephone conversation, all parties must be notified before you commence recording. To avoid legal action, your call center must advise all parties that they will be recorded, and give them the opportunity to opt out if they so desire. It must also be clear that in order to opt out they should hang up. In order to avoid any legal complications with this issue, the easiest option is to ask your employees and contractors to sign a notice of consent form agreeing that their calls may be monitored and recorded.

Network Regulations

You also need to ensure that your call center network system is secure enough to be compliant with PCI guidelines. This means not only having an effective firewall and router but also implementing internal processes that will provide additional layers of protection. You should impose restrictions on all traffic from networks which are considered to be unsafe and never permit direct access between network components containing customer data and the internet.

To make sure your call center agents are aware of security protocols and call center regulations, you should add these issues to the employee training program, and make sure to update your team regularly so that they do not forget to keep all calls 100 percent compliant.

Tag: Compliance

Dodd-Frank Act: Call Recording Compliance for US Banks