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Most popular communication data types captured globally, across industry
The chart sets out the most popularly captured communication channels across the sampled Global Relay Connector accounts worldwide. Most organizations continue to capture “traditional” business communication methods, with 89% of accounts capturing email, 24% capturing Instant Bloomberg (Bloomberg Chat), and 19% capturing MS Teams. This indicates that most firms employ these channels in conventional roles – an external communication tool, a dedicated financial messaging tool, and an internal communication tool.
Less expected is the prominence of social media within the top 10 most popularly captured channels. LinkedIn, in particular, features highly, with 33% of all accounts opting to capture LinkedIn communications. The data captured in this instance includes marketing messaging and posts on public feeds, as well as individual employee communications within LinkedIn Messaging.
Both LinkedIn and X capture are favored over the capture of internal messaging channels such as MS Teams, which may suggest that firms are prioritizing capturing external-facing channels in light of regulatory scrutiny around potential marketing activities or communications with customers. MS Teams is the internal messaging application of choice over Slack – likely owing to its integration across the near ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite.
What is particularly interesting, in this instance, is the number of Global Relay Connector accounts implementing LinkedIn and X capture, versus the number of active seats within those accounts. Drilling into the data, we can see that there is a 35% uplift in active seats within the LinkedIn Connector as compared to the X Connector. This suggests that the discrepancy between LinkedIn and X capture is even more distinct at an individual user level, with far more firms capturing LinkedIn than initially appears.
While conventional channels remain popular, the percentage of firms opting to capture email communications is lower than expected, despite its status as the most widely used business communication channel, and the strength of regulatory expectation around email capture.
Of the 11% who are opting not to capture email, some may be reliant on in-house solutions, or using Microsoft Outlook’s own email retention functionality.
Also absent in the data is the use of video communication tools, such as Zoom. Only 3% of Global Relay Connector accounts are opting to capture Zoom. There are myriad explanations for low capture rate, not least the comparative difficulty and cost associated with video capture and storage. The preservation of thousands of hours of video content naturally requires large amounts of data to be stored, resulting in expensive storage costs. Given that we have yet to see a real focus from financial regulators on the capture of video communications, firms may be weighing up the cost benefits of capture versus non-compliance. Many video calling applications allow users to dial into a call from a telephone line, and some organizations may feel that regulatory requirements are being met by virtue of these lines being captured and recorded. However, this may be set to change in the coming year given recent speculation from individuals close to the SEC’s examinations and enforcement efforts.
In the same vein, only 8% of firms are capturing SMS/Text for business communications – with even fewer implementing a strategy to capture WhatsApp. Unlike video capture, regulators have taken decisive enforcement action against numerous firms and individuals for their failure to capture SMS/Text and WhatsApp messages. A number of firms are reviewing their strategies with regards to WhatsApp and, while many are reinforcing prohibition through channel bans, most are also looking at ways to capture in line with regulations, whether it be on corporate-issued or personal devices.
