Compliance Case Studies

Firm

Think Equity LLC, a broker dealer / wealth management firm with multiple offices

Problem

The firm pre-clears 500 personal trades a month by email. When each email came in, Compliance did a series of manual checks including a restricted list check. Periodically Compliance manually reconciled the pre-clearances with the employees' statements and followed up on exceptions. This work required almost an entire fulltime person.

Solution

The RIA implemented Compliance11's Personal Trading product using the auto-approve feature. Now employees receive instantaneous approval or denial of trade requests. Pre-clearances and confirms are reconciled automatically, and exceptions are logged automatically.

Result

Thanks to the automated solution, the CCO was able to cancel a hiring request and is now viewed as a hero in the organization.

Customer Experience

"The Compliance Team at ThinkEquity has been very happy to partner with Compliance11 in the development and rollout of its product offerings. Rarely have we partnered with a vendor who has such a strong understanding of the ethical imperatives of our business, and of the work that is necessary to survey the daily activities of our firm. Because of their web-based tools, we have reduced the hours necessary each day to review employee personal activities, streamlined our various employee attestations and have rolled out other processes that help throughout the firm. This has allowed us to make the team much more efficient. The result - no new hires! But best of all, the Compliance11 team is very responsive, provides outstanding customer service and is always ready to hear suggestions. It's almost like having a development team of your very own!"
Harriet Bitt, CCO

Firm

Cowen and Company, a broker with multiple offices in the US, Europe and Asia

Problem

The Compliance department was looking for an employee personal trading solution. The current solution was email based and utilized an antiquated database. The Chief Compliance Officer was concerned that his staff was spending too much time sorting through paper and email. He felt that his staff should instead focus on high value analysis. The vendors that were looked at required complex implementations or significant customizations. The Chief Compliance Officer did not think that his staff had enough spare time to launch a major systems implementation project.

Solution

Cowen and Company chose Compliance11's Personal Trading product primarily because it was looking for a partner, not just a vendor. Compliance11's VP of Customer Service worked with Cowen's Compliance staff to implement the product, configure the business rules and implement the brokerage feeds. The intuitive nature of the interface allowed for a speedy implementation that was not burdensome on the compliance staff.

Result

Cowen and Company was able to maintain and improve it supervisory capability while significantly reducing its clerical effort and compliance spend.

Customer Experience

"Our Board of Directors and senior management ask from time to time whether recent market developments and the Firm's responses have impaired the ability of the Legal and Compliance Department to ensure appropriate internal controls are in place. I have been able to answer "No" because we have taken a number of steps to mitigate the situation. One such step is to increase our reliance on systems solutions and technological tools, including our recent implementation of Compliance11 to automate personal trading, affirmations, disclosures and general supervision. This product allowed us to focus on critical surveillance and advisory issues, improve our overall work flow and enhance our ability to respond to client needs, while at the same time, reducing our compliance spend."
Mark Egert, CCO

Firm

RMB Capital Management, a wealth management firm in Chicago, IL

Problem

The Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) utilized an associate to match trade requests against the restricted list, reconcile confirms to employees trade requests and manage the creation of the quarterly holdings report. Budget cuts and changing firm priorities caused the associate to be transferred to another department. The CCO was left to deal with a pile of un-reconciled confirms and a process in need of administration. With several IT projects in flight, the CCO was left with minimal IT support.

Solution

The firm decided to implement Compliance11's personal trading product. Since Compliance11's products are delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), IT was not required to assist in the implementation. The product automated the pre-clearance of trade requests, the reconciliation of the brokerage confirms and the reporting of employee quarterly holdings.

Result

The CCO was now able to perform her additional duties without the need for an extra headcount.

Customer Experience

"We used to spend hundreds of hours downloading and printing employee statements/Compliance11's employee trading product has saved us an incredible amount of time. Employees have embraced the instant acknowledgement that their trade has been approved."
Jennifer Rydwelski, CCO

Firm

A mid-size full service broker with multiple offices in the US, Europe and Asia

Problem

Compliance used to distribute paper forms for people to affirm to company policies. Additional paper forms were used to capture employee disclosure information like outside business activities and outside trading accounts. Each year the process involved 7 Compliance staff over a period of 3 months distributing the forms and following up to ensure the completion of the forms. With so many paper forms flying around, it was difficult to be sure that each were ever actually complete.

Solution

The firm implemented Compliance11's Affirmations and Disclosures product. Now employees receive an email inviting them to complete the annual questionnaire. Once completed, electronic forms are automatically routed for approval. Reports ensure 100% compliance. The annual questionnaire is administered in weeks instead of months by one instead of seven compliance people.

Result

In recent regulatory audit, the data provided from the system was not even questioned. The firm is looking to buy additional modules from Complaince11.

Firm

A large agency brokerage firm with multiple offices in the US, Europe and Asia

Problem

The Compliance department was unable to distribute its annual affirmation process and continue to perform its regular duties. Hiring temporary workers was costly and did not improve efficiency. The manual process took almost 7 months from onset to completion. Compliance spent an inordinate amount of time resolving issues, potential conflicts and incomplete responses in addition to chasing down laggards.

Solution

The firm recently implemented Compliance11's Affirmations & Disclosures product. The questionnaires were tailored to specific departments. Approximately 12,000 questions were sent out beginning in April 2008 and 6,200 came back within the first ten days. Disclosures were routed to the supervisor for review and laggard employees were identified though the Delinquency Report and sent reminder emails.

Result

The process required significantly less compliance department effort, no temporary worker expense, and took less than one-quarter of the time it used to.

Firm

Bridge Capital Associates, Inc, a middle market investment banking firm

Problem

Bridge Capital has a team of independent contractors across the country arranging private placements of debt and equity and advising clients on mergers and acquisitions. The firm was burdened by sending out paper affirmations, compiling the results and following up on the deficiencies. Given that the firm is fully employed in business issues, the clerical compliance tasks were becoming unduly burdensome.

Solution

Bridge Capital implemented Compliance11's Affirmations & Disclosures module. The Software-as-a-Service model was particularly appealing because it required no IT resources, could be effortlessly managed remotely and the cost of product could be passed onto the contractors. With the new system, the affirmations and disclosures were fully completed with minimal clerical effort. Deficiencies were quickly identified in the Delinquency Report and reminder emails were sent.

Result

The clerical effort associated with managing compliance has been minimized.

Client Experience

"We use the entire compliance solutions suite offered by Compliance11. Our registered representatives are both geographically diverse and frequently travel. The Compliance11 platform provides tremendous flexibility and convenience to automate much of our compliance program and allow effective compliance communications between staff in the field and the home office. Larry Goldfarb and his team are top notch professionals and have always responded to our issues in a timely and thorough manner. We hope to utilize the Compliance11 program for many years to come."
Carrie Wisnewski, President