Smarsh acquires Cognia to extend voice-archiving capabilities ahead of MiFID II - SmartBrief

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Smarsh acquires Cognia to extend voice-archiving capabilities ahead of MiFID II

Smarsh acquires voice-archiving solution to boost MiFID II compliance offerings

2 min read

Modern Money

Smarsh

(Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Smarsh is expanding its capabilities to meet the European Union’s updated Markets in Financial Instruments Directive with the acquisition of Cognia, a London-based provider of voice archiving, audio search and analytics. Cognia’s technology will be part of Smarsh’s Archiving Platform, meeting the new MiFID II compliance regime. Cognia’s capabilities and development unit will improve Smarsh’s voice communication capabilities for both mobile and landline devices.

Cognia’s technology records incoming and outgoing voice communications from fixed-line and mobile providers. Recording directly from the carrier provides industry leading reliability and automation of archived audio content, and Cognia’s cloud architecture means users will not be required to download software at the device level.

Smarsh is leveraging Cognia’s capabilities to enable the secure search, analysis and monitoring of audio content via both phonetic search and text-based search of transcriptions. The system will meet MiFID II archiving and recreation requirements across voice, email, text message, instant message and social media, all in one place.

“Smarsh is focused on providing worldwide financial institutions with the retention and oversight solutions to meet the latest regulatory requirements,” said Smarsh CEO Stephen Marsh. “Adding the innovative technology and team from Cognia is core to this strategy. It positions Smarsh as the only archiving provider directly capturing mobile voice content from the carriers, along with the most reliable and efficient technology solution to conduct oversight of all of their electronic communications in one place.”

Upcoming regulatory changes will affect all firms that do business with anyone providing investment services in the European Economic Area. This will increase the necessity of updated systems to capture, archive and reproduce service records covering all activities and transactions at both the firm and client level. The retention and recreation requirements cover all voice and electronic communications related to trading activities.

“We are excited to join Smarsh, and together, we can offer the industry’s most complete, comprehensive solution to manage risk throughout the entire spectrum of communications,” said Cognia CEO Stewart Holness. “With MiFID II on the horizon, organizations will be able to efficiently confront their recordkeeping requirements with a partner that is committed to keeping them in compliance with the regulatory environment.”