Comprehensive guide to eDiscovery solutions for compliance in financial services

What is eDiscovery in financial services compliance?

eDiscovery (electronic discovery) is the process of identifying, preserving, reviewing, and producing electronic communications and records in response to a regulatory request or litigation. In financial services, business conversations occur across a range of channels, such as email, chat, collaboration platforms, mobile messaging, and voice.

Unlike recordkeeping, which is about capturing and retaining communications, eDiscovery refers to the retrieval of those records. It comes into play when a regulator, court, or compliance reviewer needs to find and produce specific records quickly and defensibly. eDiscovery is only as fast and complete as the archive it draws on, which is why firms cannot solve eDiscovery problems in isolation from their recordkeeping and surveillance programs.

Why does eDiscovery matter for compliance?

• Regulatory and legal deadlines are tight. Firms are frequently required to produce specific communications within days, whether for a regulatory inquiry, a subpoena, or an internal investigation.
• Incomplete or slow production is a risk itself. Gaps, delays, or an inability to locate relevant records can draw scrutiny, regardless of whatever the underlying investigation was about.
• Data volumes and channels keep growing. Business communications are spread across platforms like email, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, and voice. Compliance teams may need to search all these channels together for a single matter.
• Defensibility matters as much as speed. Regulators and courts expect a documented, auditable chain of custody that demonstrates how records were preserved and produced.

How does the eDiscovery process work?

• Early case assessment. Firms assess the likely scope of the case and plan a proportionate response before performing a full review. This includes understanding which custodians are involved, relevant timeframes, and communication volumes.
• Legal hold. Relevant communications are placed under hold so they cannot be altered or deleted, with role-based access and a documented chain of custody.
• Search and collection. A targeted, indexed search across every relevant channel can help narrow large data sets down to what is applicable, or “responsive,” to the request.
• Review. Legal and compliance teams review the collected communications for relevance and privilege before producing anything.
• Production. Teams will export applicable records in a defensible, audit-ready format for the regulator, court, or internal stakeholder.

What are the common challenges in eDiscovery?

• Fragmented data. Communications that are spread across many channels and vendors make it hard to search everything as a single, coherent data set.
• Legacy and unstructured data. Older repositories and non-standard formats often require costly cleanup and normalization before reviewers can search them.
• Deletion and retention conflicts. Some platforms only preserve data under specific conditions. Therefore, if a channel is deleted before a hold is applied, records could be lost unless a separate archive already captured them.
• Proportionality. Without early case assessment, firms risk reviewing far more data than required, driving up cost and time.

In-house eDiscovery vs outsourced (DaaS)

Firms generally take one of two approaches. With an in-house model, eDiscovery capabilities and data are internal, giving firms direct control. However, firms will need to invest in tools, infrastructure, and specialist staff.

A Discovery-as-a-Service (DaaS) model outsources the process to a specialist provider, combining external expertise with the firm’s own knowledge of its policies and data. This typically helps firms avoid heavy upfront infrastructure investment while still giving them oversight of the process.

Regardless of whether eDiscovery is performed in-house or outsourced, it is only as fast and complete as the archive of communications it searches.

What does good eDiscovery look like?

A unified, continuously indexed archive. Every channel is captured and searchable from one place, rather than scattered across disconnected systems.

Fast, targeted search. Legal and compliance teams can narrow a large data set down without manual, channel-by-channel collection.

Defensible legal holds. Reviewers can applyholds without disrupting normal retention policies, with role-based access and a full audit trail.

Proportionate scoping. Early case assessment data is available up front to optimize the review, including custodians, timeframes, and data volumes.

Clear chain of custody. Every action taken when collecting, reviewing, and producing records should be logged and available if challenged.

FAQs

What is eDiscovery in financial services?

The process of identifying, preserving, reviewing, and producing electronic communications and records in response to a regulatory request, litigation, or investigation.

How is eDiscovery different from recordkeeping?

Recordkeeping is the ongoing capture and retention of communications. eDiscovery is the quick and defensible retrieval of this information. eDiscovery depends on recordkeeping; to retrieve data, it needs to be captured in the first place.

What is a legal hold?

A legal hold preserves specific communications or records so they cannot be altered or deleted. It is typically issued once an organization reasonably anticipates a litigation or investigation.

What is early case assessment?

An initial review of the likely scope of a matter, including custodians, timeframes, and data volumes. It is used to plan a proportionate eDiscovery response rather than reviewing everything.

Should firms handle eDiscovery in-house or outsource it?

Both approaches are viable depending on a firm’s needs. In-house eDiscovery keeps control and data internal but requires investment in tools and staff. Discovery-as-a-Service (DaaS) outsources some or all of the process to a specialist, often reducing upfront cost while the firm retains oversight.

Why do firms struggle with eDiscovery?

eDiscovery can be difficult due to fragmented data across channels, unstructured legacy data that needs cleanup, and a lack of early case assessment that leads teams to review far more data than necessary.

How Global Relay helps

Fast, defensible eDiscovery depends on having captured everything in the first place. Global Relay’s legal investigation and eDiscovery solution combines a continuously indexed, tamper-proof archive with targeted search, legal hold, and audit-ready export so that legal and compliance teams can respond to regulators and litigation quickly and defensibly. Learn more about Global Relay’s recordkeeping compliance solution.