Find out what the data of 12,000 financial institutions reveals about recordkeeping and surveillance priorities over 2024.

Within this report, we explore statistics gathered from our compliance community to understand emerging communications capture trends – especially surrounding WhatsApp and social media – and the likely trajectory for recordkeeping and surveillance.

Gain invaluable perspectives that highlight how your financial peers are weighing communications capture and risk monitoring priorities moving into 2025. Beyond discovering emerging trends, review predictions about the future of channel capture. In addition, evaluate the split in approaches by jurisdiction to understand how regional views align and differ.

Top findings include:

• A 400% increase in the number of firms aiming to capture data with generative AI technology
• The top 3 highest captured communications channels amongst financial institutions are LinkedIn, Instant Bloomberg, and email 
• 258% more firms captured WhatsApp communications data over the period of September 2023 to September 2024
• The capture of social media channels and corporate website content by U.S. firms has increased 14% since the implementation of the SEC Marketing Rule
  
  

Communication and business needs are expanding following the integration of new and preferred platforms into financial operations. In light of this integration, Global Relay set out to understand how firms are adapting their comms capture approach to keep pace with evolution.

In the past several years, regulators have emphasized the need for communications capture across all channels, with a particular focus on WhatsApp. Likewise, recent regulatory developments have emphasized the need for the complete capture of social media due to its use as a communications platform and marketing tool.

In view of these concentrations, our report illustrates interesting developments around capture trends. Traditional methods of communication, email retention, Microsoft Teams, and Instant Bloomberg remain clear priorities. Notably, certain platforms saw a substantial increase in capture, such as Instagram, Zoom, and YouTube.

It seems that firms are more extensively beginning to embrace social media capture, with LinkedIn charting as one of the top three platforms. This development follows findings from our previous Data Insights Report, which also showed a clear focus on LinkedIn. With the ability to use the social platform for both messaging and marketing purposes, it’s clear why the channel is at the top of firms’ agendas.

The financial industry is ever-developing, provoking questions around how recordkeeping and surveillance patterns will transform from 2025 onward. Is generative AI gearing up to become more widespread within compliance workflows? How will firms manage the use of ephemeral messages to meet recordkeeping regulations? Will non-financial misconduct become a key factor in driving communications surveillance?

Global Relay’s Industry Insights: Communication Capture Trends in 2024/2025 report gives valuable insight on the following topics:

• The most popularly captured communications channels across global financial populations, such as LinkedIn (both personal and company accounts), Instant Bloomberg, Microsoft Teams, and Global Relay App
• A breakdown of the most popularly capture communications channels within the U.S. vs U.K., as well as by industry vertical
• Emerging communication capture trends in 2025, such as the continued focus on WhatsApp and social media, the use of generative AI, the management of ephemeral channels, and the importance of non-financial misconduct