How brand management software helps minimize the risk of a financial services compliance breach

By Tim Brown
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22 February 2021

The cost of a compliance breach to a financial services brand can be absolutely devastating. Depending on the type of breach it could start as a weakened brand and loss of customers, then move on to incurring significant internal compliance costs and, in some cases, attract steep fines.

Compliance is a zero-tolerance game in the financial services sector, and with compliance costs and penalties rising, preventative action to create a robust compliance framework is a business imperative.

Did you know McKinsey found first and second line compliance staff can spend as much as 80% of their time on issues of low or moderate importance, and only 20% on critical high-risk issues?

This is particularly true in financial services marketing, where central marketing teams are often under pressure to regulate the activities of branch networks, brokers, mobile lenders and other representatives remotely, preventing them from focusing on strategically important tasks.

In addition, manual compliance processes are often inconsistent, time-consuming or plagued by ‘user error’. But fear not, a centralized approach and the right tools can be applied to help solve many of those issues efficiently and cost-effectively, avoiding penalties down the track. 

Centralized compliance information

Whether it’s a register of relevant regulations, brand guidelines, updated terms and disclosures or marketing organization approval matrices, these need to be centrally accessible and kept updated so brand governance and compliance information is always at the fingertips of those who need it. 

Responsive content creation via locked-down templates

Brand compliance and content creation procedures can be automated using responsive templating software that automatically applies particular elements, such as color, fonts, disclaimers and so on.

When it comes to local area marketing involving regional divisions, individual branches and even mobile lenders or brokers, the ability to edit or self-create on-brand collateral within defined guidelines and workflows not only saves countless compliance hours, it minimizes the risks associated with leaving these to manual processes.

Automated approval workflows

Compliant workflows that build in tiered approvals ensuring every piece of marketing communications has the appropriate oversight are essential to an efficient marketing compliance process. Nothing slows a team down like waiting weeks for approval.

Tools that record the version and review history of marketing assets, automatically capturing the audit trail, will save time and minimize disruption.

Centralized asset library

A centrally accessible repository of approved brand and marketing assets, including usage rights, can give particular teams access to only the assets they need, dramatically reducing the risk of out-of-date, off-brand or inaccurate assets being used.

Data integrations removing manual data processes

Tools that offer API-based integrations can be put to good use minimizing manual data input and risk, while saving countless hours of admin time. 

Artificial Intelligence

AI technology can be applied to generate compliant creative assets based on specific inputs, or even to flag inappropriate communications from broker or branch networks. 

Outfit’s brand management and automation platform offers responsive templates, tiered approval workflows and audit trails, a centralized asset library, integrations and more to help your team prevent marketing compliance issues before they arise. 

Financial institutions generate proven ROI from the Outfit platform day-in-day out and you can read about how exactly they do that in the ROI of Brand Automation ebook.

 

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