In the final months of 2019, Shanghai-based Pudong Bank was preparing for a year that would turn out nothing like expected. Its 26th anniversary loomed in January. The stock was doing well and all was quiet. Raju Chokshi, the head of compliance, was just getting everything sorted to explore ways to record calls across devices—a long-term initiative, and one of many. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
The world was temporarily upended. Markets whipsawed and leadership ordered all global employees to work from home. From the company’s London office, Chokshi realized their compliance plans had to be accelerated to meet MiFID II regulation. Within 15 days, he and his team had deployed mobile recording across work and personal devices with Movius MultiLine. The application now provides the London office’s relationship managers with a second corporate number that’s secure, and it’s being rolled out across the bank.
Chapter 1:
The Challenge: Sudden Shift to WFH
The pandemic elevated Pudong Bank’s need for mobile recording to a minor emergency. Many of its relationship managers and other regulated users were now working from home and many of them communicating on a daily basis with clients. These conversations were covered by a patchwork of global financial regulations, and yet it was no longer practical to ask them not to use their mobile phones. “Suddenly we realized, we need to have this in place now,” recalls Chokshi. “We were looking for something that could accomplish this.”
Suddenly we realized, we need to have this in place now. – Raju Chokshi, Head of Compliance
The challenge for Chokshi’s team was that all the solutions available appeared convoluted. Some offerings promised to reroute calls back into the office to record it from there. Others offered ways to record on a per-phone basis, without any option for a central console or central management. “They just weren’t going to work,” said Chokshi.
Chapter 2:
The Solution: Mobile-First Recording
Chokshi gathered a committee. It consisted of his compliance team, the administrative team that managed their phones, the risk committee, and members of senior management. All understood the importance: They needed to find a solution that’d allow them to record mobile conversations and just as important, prove it to auditors. Otherwise, they’d be exposed to fines right at a time when the future could not be more uncertain.
To be sure he’d find the right solution, Chokshi drew up a list of requirements: The solution would have to be uniform. It would have to provide central compliance oversight with the ability to view all recorded calls and texts in one place, and it would have to address mobile devices.
He also collected information from each department’s phone usage to confirm his hypothesis. Relationship managers wanted the phone line to work whether they were on a personal or work device. Many in senior management, however, felt strongly about only using their business phone. The solution would have to address both use cases. When Chokshi’s team drew a feature comparison chart, only Movius fit the bill.
They put together a package for us very quickly and we appreciated the timeliness,” said Chokshi. “They were also flexible in including everyone’s personal mobile devices too.
Pudong Bank quickly ran a pilot. The installation was as simple as the administrator sending an invite to employees and them downloading the app and entering their credentials. It was activated within minutes.
“At first, people were concerned,” said Chokshi. “They said, ‘Are you going to be monitoring my personal phone as well?’ But of course, it doesn’t, we allayed those fears and the deployment was very good, from start to finish.”
After the front office teams saw how unobtrusive it was, they felt comfortable. Chokshi and his team proceeded with a full rollout.
Chapter 3:
The Benefit: Compliant Communications in Minutes
Shanghai Pudong Bank now allows its employees to communicate freely within and outside the business. Relationship managers can call and text to maintain relationships at a time when it’s unclear whether remote work will ever give way to a full migration back into offices. And whether they use it on their personal or business devices, the calls and texts are recorded and easily accessed by the company’s compliance and risk teams.
Chokshi feels that the shining benefit of Movius is its ease of use. “I changed my company phone over yesterday,” he marveled. “It was as simple as reinstalling the app on the new device and everything carried over. It’s a very simple solution—easy to deploy and stress-free.”
It’s a very simple solution—easy to deploy and stress-free.
It’s too early to tell how being able to communicate freely will impact the bank’s financial performance or customer satisfaction. Chokshi feels that the biggest impact so far is they’ve achieved compliance without impacting the user experience for relationship managers. Now the bank’s customer-facing employees are using their phones as they normally would, without having to think about it. “That’s the best thing we could ask for,” he says.
