ACA Compliance Group Launches Holistic Surveillance Solution for Financial Services Firms

ACA Compliance Group (ACA), a leading provider of governance, risk, and compliance advisory services and technology solutions, today announced the launch of ACA’s holistic surveillance solution. The new offering brings together ACA’s established surveillance services and technology solutions in a comprehensive package designed to help firms meet the surveillance expectations of regulators as well as to replicate their technological capabilities.

The benefits of holistic surveillance

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has invested in developing and improving its technology and data analytics capabilities to support its National Examination Program (NEP). Through a combination of enhanced technology and training provided to examination staff, the SEC has become more efficient, effective, and targeted when conducting on-site examinations. The NEP appears to be capable of ingesting structured data (trade blotters) and unstructured data (research calendars, logs of paid and unpaid calls with experts, call notes, output from widely-used corporate access data platforms, and electronic communications) for analysis by the SEC’s National Examination Analytics Tool (NEAT). These capabilities strengthen the SEC examination staff’s ability to identify anomalies in trading patterns or activity.

Regulators expect compliance professionals to supplement their expertise with surveillance and technology, which places an additional burden on compliance departments. Mitigating actual and perceived risk via diligent and targeted monitoring, surveillance, and forensic testing of a firm’s compliance program is critical to meeting regulatory obligations.

A holistic surveillance program combines surveillance technology with human expertise to normalize data sets from multiple sources, run sophisticated analytics, and review the results with dedicated surveillance analysts to provide your firm with a complete, efficient, and holistic view of activity and behavior.

About ACA’s holistic surveillance solution

ACA’s holistic surveillance solution provides firms with a comprehensive approach to surveillance, combining ACA’s surveillance technology with white-glove support from ACA’s dedicated compliance and surveillance specialists.

The services included in ACA’s holistic surveillance solution include ACA’s trade surveillance technology, electronic communications surveillance, expert network call chaperoning, social media and online presence surveillance, and code of ethics and employee personal trading review.

Brett Ambrose, Senior Client Implementation Specialist at ACA Compliance Group, said, “ACA’s holistic surveillance solution is designed to provide firms with an efficient, thorough, and consistent process to enhance their overall compliance program and proactively identify potential risk. Firms don’t want the regulators inquiring about a transaction not on their radar screen.”

Michael Lehman, Partner at ACA Technology Solutions, said, “At ACA we pride ourselves on our ability to bring together the best people, technology, and services to deliver a comprehensive, integrated approach to governance, risk, and compliance. ACA’s holistic surveillance solution helps our clients ensure a comprehensive, integrated approach to surveillance across their firm to meet regulators’ evolving requirements and technological capabilities.”

About ACA's surveillance technology

ACA's trade surveillance technology solution provides in-depth trade surveillance to help firms identify items of interest and noncompliant trading and investment activity. The solution includes a case management tool that can store emails, reports, and research related to each investigation. Request a Demo

About ACA Compliance Group

ACA Compliance Group is a leading provider of governance, risk, and compliance advisory services and technology solutions. We partner with our clients to help them mitigate the regulatory, operational, and reputational risks associated with their business functions. Our clients include leading investment advisers, private fund managers, commodity trading advisors, investment companies, broker-dealers, and domestic and international banks. ACA is based in New York City and has offices in London, Hong Kong, Malta, and other U.S. cities.