Staying Ahead of SEC and FINRA Regulations: How Email Hosting and Email Archiving Serve Different Purposes
From a distance, email archiving and email hosting capabilities may seem similar. However, while both email hosting and archiving are vital components of data protection and disaster recovery, they serve very different purposes.
At the same time, security is increasingly critical for financial services. Today, many firms are choosing to move from a defensive risk management stance to a forward-looking one. Implementing a simple-to-use data capture and archive solution with future-focused sustainability in mind for data expansion has become one key to success for leading financial services organizations.
Why it matters
In today's digital age, email remains an essential communication channel for businesses of all sizes, facilitating both internal communication and client interactions. For financial services firms, the retention of emails is particularly important for investment advisers and broker-dealers as it plays a crucial role in meeting recordkeeping requirements as defined by regulatory bodies such as the SEC and FINRA.
Key differences between email hosting and email archiving
While email hosting and archiving are essential for managing business communications, they each serve different purposes:
- Email hosting provides the infrastructure for sending, receiving, and storing short-term active emails
- Email archiving focuses on preserving historical emails for long-term storage and retrieval and maintaining compliance for regulated businesses
Email archiving involves capturing, storing, and managing email messages and their metadata in a secure and tamper-proof repository. A robust archiving solution ensures that emails can be easily retrieved in the case of an audit or e-discovery request. The right email archiving solution is a must for businesses that must preserve email data for legal, regulatory, or operational reasons.
Key features of email archiving:
- Data preservation: Email archiving ensures that all emails are stored in accordance with recordkeeping obligations as mandated by SEC Rule 17a-3, SEC Rule 17a-4 and FINRA Rule 4511, that email communications are preserved in their original state, and that the records cannot be altered or deleted
- Search and retrieval: Advanced search capabilities allow users to quickly find and retrieve specific emails, saving time and improving efficiency
- Disaster recovery: Archiving ensures that emails are backed up and can be recovered in case of data loss or system failure
A streamlined archive solution for financial services is designed to meet legal and regulatory requirements by maintaining accurate and unalterable records of email communications for specific compliance purposes.
The importance of email archiving for compliance and legal protection
Email archiving is essential for meeting compliance requirements and protecting businesses in legal disputes. By preserving accurate records of email communications, financial services companies can demonstrate compliance with regulatory standards and provide email data in the case of litigation.
Operational efficiency and disaster recovery
Email archiving ensures the preservation and accessibility of historical email data in accordance with recordkeeping obligations. While email hosting provides the infrastructure for day-to-day email management, businesses can leverage both services to enhance their security, comply with regulatory requirements, and improve operational efficiency.
Investing in robust email hosting and archiving solutions is a smart move for any organization. Smarsh offers financial services companies our Professional Archive and email capture, as well as a comprehensive suite of business solutions, including email hosting, to help you manage all aspects of your digital communications management. We understand what really matters to financial firms: building integrity and trust with clients, partners, regulators, and the industry.
By implementing a Smarsh archiving solution, your firm can ensure all your email communications are captured and stored so your organization can stay compliant with regulatory requirements and recordkeeping initiatives.
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Scalable for organizations of all sizes, the Smarsh platform provides customers with compliance built on confidence. It enables them to strategically future-proof as new communication channels are adopted, and to realize more insight and value from the data in their archive. Customers strengthen their compliance and e-discovery initiatives and benefit from the productive use of email, social media, mobile/text messaging, instant messaging and collaboration, web, and voice channels.
Smarsh serves a global client base that spans the top banks in North America and Europe, along with leading brokerage firms, insurers, and registered investment advisors. Smarsh also enables state and local government agencies to meet their public records and e-discovery requirements. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com.
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