Call recording compliance software captures and archives business conversations so regulated organizations can meet their obligations. In reality, what seems simple is often plagued by platform limitations and configuration errors.
This guide covers what regulators ask of financial services organizations, what to evaluate in a call recording compliance software vendor, and where recording software fails most often. By the end, you should be able to tell whether your platform configuration simply needs optimizing or whether it should be replaced altogether.
Call recording compliance software captures conversations, retains them under a defined policy, and produces them on request. It is leveraged by organizations in regulated industries to prove what was said, for instance in case of a dispute or during a regulatory investigation.
Capture: every in-scope conversation across all business channels in use. This includes transfers, holds, conferences, chats, and mobile interactions.
Retain: under a schedule with defined triggers, where legal hold overrides scheduled deletion.
Produce: on demand, a complete set of recordings for named users across a defined period.
Which regulations require call recording depends on where your business operates and which activities your employees carry out. The table below depicts a summary of the most relevant rules for financial services firms.
| Region | Rule | Recording requirement |
| Switzerland | FINMA Circular 2013/8 | All client-advisory communication |
| EU | MiFID II | Interactions related to dealing and client orders |
| UK | FCA SYSC 10A.1 | Record relevant calls on firm-provided or firm-permitted equipment |
| U.S. | SEC Rule 17a-4 | Preserve communications in either non-rewriteable storage or a system with a complete audit trail |
An auditor may ask for specific call recordings, proof that they have not been altered, and a legal hold to stop further deletion. Usually, regulators do not ask to review a business’ recordings as a matter of routine, but rather when an investigation is open.
Here is an example: An investigation opens across three financial institutions into suspected insider trading. Each business is contacted and asked to produce all recordings for a named group of people across a 2-year period. The financial institutions are asked to enforce a legal hold on all recorded conversations in case other parties’ interactions become relevant at a later point in the investigation.
Regulators thus not only require regulated organizations to monitor call recording compliance. Your call recording software is instrumental in providing evidence by recording and retaining conversations, and enforcing a legal hold when asked:
| What regulators may ask for | What is required | Failure signature |
| All recordings for named users within a specific date range | A complete, retrievable set spanning every communications channel those employees used | Different channels cannot be reconciled; missing interactions |
| Disable automatic deletions of interactions for these users | Immediate enforcement of a legal hold | The hold exists in a ticket system, or takes days to apply |
A note on immutability: Showing who accessed a recording is not something an examiner typically asks for. It is more of an internal control: It helps prevent misuse of the archive by those who have access to it.
For instance, someone with system access replays a trader's conversations and acts privately on what they hear. A compliance officer reviewing the audit trail notices repeated replays with no case reference attached and escalates this.
Evaluation of call recording software should be divided into three tiers: non-negotiable pass or fail criteria like certifications; verification of standard capabilities such as encryption and key management; and individual criteria like export requirements specific to your organizations’ needs.
As Daniel Steinmann, Product Owner Realtime Communication Services at Swiss Re, said:
Any call recording software for financial services firms must be SOC 2 Type II attested to ensure the right security controls are in place. Depending on the communications your firm operates in, specific credentials such as a Microsoft 365 certification are essential as well. These attestations should always cover the product you would be buying, not simply the vendor.
Any credible call recording compliance software usually comes with a set of capabilities tailored to compliance use cases. Here is a list of the most common features and how to verify them:
Capture reliability and coverage: How many communications channels a software is certified to record. Ask: How do you demonstrate that every in-scope conversation was captured? Can you show us a reconciliation report against a telephony log or switch record?
Audio quality, transcription possibility, and searchability: Determines whether a recording is accepted as evidence and underpins most speech analytics use cases in financial services compliance. Ask: What transcription accuracy do you measure for our languages and accents? Do you have advanced search capabilities and how long does a search take?
Retention control and legal hold: A schedule with triggers, where legal hold overrides time-based deletion inside the platform. Ask: How quickly does a legal hold take effect? Does it stop a deletion already scheduled for that day? Can it be applied across the whole organization at once?
Role-based access control, immutability, and audit trail: Important for internal policies to ensure compliance with regulations and to prevent misuse. Ask: Do you offer non-rewriteable storage? Does the audit trail record read access as well as modifications? Can you provide a sample export for a single recording?
Encryption and key management: Encryption protects the archive; key management determines who can undo that protection. Ask: Can we hold our own keys? Can anyone at your company decrypt a recording without our involvement, and what does that action leave in the log?
Redaction and sensitive data handling: A hard requirement wherever card data is taken by phone. Ask: Is redaction applied to the stored file or only to playback? At what point in the capture path is card data suppressed?
The criteria below determine whether your call recording solution truly serves your business, or you end up having to onboard a second one.
Breadth of capture coverage: How many platforms, channels, and modalities the vendor is certified to record, including trading turrets, mobile, meetings, and chat. Ask: Which platforms are you certified for today, which are on the roadmap with dates, and what happens if we adopt one you do not support?
Data residency, sovereignty, and export options: Where recordings physically sit, which jurisdiction's law reaches them, and whether you can leave with them in a usable format. Ask: What export formats do you support, what metadata travels with the file, and can you show us a sample export?
Regulatory support: Which requirements the vendor actively supports, how quickly they respond to regulatory change, and whether their software will help you provide evidence for a claim to your regulator. Ask: Which regulations do you support? Do you regularly update the software to adhere to new regulations?
Reputation among peers: Ask counterparts of similar size and regulatory profile what call recording compliance software they use, how it makes their work easier or more difficult.
As an example, KBC adopted Luware Recording, Luware’s multi-platform compliance recording solution. Christoph Ruys, Product Owner at KBC, described how Luware’s long-term partnerships provided a decisive benefit for his organization:
Call recording compliance software most often fails due to platform limitation or a scope drift. In case of the former, replacing the platform with a more fitting one is usually the best option. In case of the latter, a configuration adaption often settles the matter.
The platform limitation: a channel your recorder cannot capture. What most organizations do in such a situation is to onboard a second compliance recording software. The consequence of this decision is not just cost. Two platforms usually mean two separate interfaces, two different workflow systems for compliance officers, and staff having to know that a call on the turret lives in one system while a Teams call lives in another. When an investigation request arrives, this means two portals to search, two exports to reconcile, and two places to apply a legal hold.
The configuration failure: scope drift. Organizations normally set the policy defining which users and channels are in scope when they first implement a call recording software. With time, the scope may fall behind the business, meaning that a channel could go live without being added to the software's coverage. The consequence is a capture gap no one notices.
Before you evaluate different call recording solutions, find out what your current call recording system delivers. The goal is to figure out whether you have a platform problem or a configuration problem. In case of the former, map your gaps and see which other solutions close them.
If you're interested in what our multi-platform compliance recording software, Luware Recording, has to offer, find out more here. You can also talk to us directly.