Keep up to date with the latest news, events and insights reshaping the future of finance.

Communications surveillance is entering a new phase, driven by expanding channels, increasing regulatory scrutiny and the rise of AI. In this blog, we explore what “good” communications surveillance looks like in 2026 and introduce a practical readiness checklist to help compliance teams assess their current capabilities and identify gaps.

The first in VoxSmart's WhatsApp Compliance series - explaining the most common terms, the main capture models, and the practical pros and cons of each.

Brazil’s financial sector is at a turning point. With global regulators handing out billions in fines for off-channel communications, communications surveillance has become a board-level priority. For Brazilian firms, where WhatsApp dominates professional interactions, the challenge isn’t if to monitor — but how to capture, retain and govern mobile, voice, and messaging data effectively.

As 2024 wraps up, VoxSmart reflects on over a decade of redefining surveillance, evolving it from a compliance necessity to a powerful commercial tool. At the recent XLod conference in London, the spotlight was on surveillance’s growing role in efficiency and revenue generation, particularly with real-time voice transcription. This technology now helps banks track client interactions, missed opportunities, and mitigate risks, offering insights that drive revenue and trust. With the market finally catching up, VoxSmart is poised to lead this shift, making surveillance a key driver of success in modern finance.

Blockchain's potential as a trusted currency hinges on transparency, usability, and trust. The EU's MiCA regulation offers a framework to transform digital assets into reliable, everyday currency, emphasizing security and accountability. VoxSmart’s CEO supports this evolution, advocating for tools that ensure compliance and foster trust, setting a standard for mainstream adoption globally.

Voxsmart Trade Reconstruction. The 10000hp turbo diesel locomotive that runs on triple distilled ethanol, unfiltered chip fat and everything in between.

Ahead of the Federal Reserve's update, Jerome Powell's recent speeches have been labeled as "dovish" by Bloomberg's NLP model, hinting at a potential pause or reduction in interest rates to support economic growth. While NLP tools offer useful insights, traditional economic analysis remains crucial. The blend of AI-driven interpretations and human judgment adds complexity to market strategies, reflecting an evolving financial landscape.

Looking at the divisive world of cloud-computing deployments and the vendor-pressure and latest innovations which push them ever further apart.

The launch of Ether ETFs, spearheaded by financial giants like BlackRock, marks a significant milestone in the integration of cryptocurrencies into mainstream finance. We look at this rapid advancement and the pressing need for equally swift regulatory frameworks to prevent market fraud and protect investors.

A critical look at Tony Blair's speech at TBI's "Future of Britain" conference - examining how far AI has come and how much is yet to be achieved.

Re-examining the fatal ramifications of Boeing's fraudulent actions and the proximity of their relationship with regulatory boards.

Looking at the disappearance of the original Declaration of Independence- a mirror of our current need for centralised records-keeping platforms.

With Euro 2024 in full swing, it can be easy to forget that England and France compete fiercely over more than just football. Both nations are also home to the two largest stock markets in Europe, with London recently overtaking Paris to reclaim its crown as the biggest bourse on the block for the first time in nearly two years.

There has been no shortage of headlines surrounding private markets regulation over recent weeks, with watchdogs on both sides of the pond baring their teeth...

Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), one of the UK’s most active private equity firms, has co-invested alongside lead investor Toscafund Asset Management in VoxSmart, a communication surveillance platform for financial institutions. The business is evidencing strong growth in key markets, supported by an impressive pipeline of near term opportunities and expanding partner relationships.

In part one of this transcription-focused blog series, we provided a detailed overview of the industry’s progress in its quest for automated transcription perfection. In other words, a future where every word uttered between a trader and their client is captured at near 100% accuracy – jargon and all.

22 May 2024, London/New York - IPC, the leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the financial markets, has joined forces with global communications surveillance tech firm VoxSmart to significantly enhance the accuracy and efficiency of multilingual transcription technology for financial institutions.

The results of our recent survey on the transformative potential of transcription tech – which canvassed the views of nearly 100 financial markets professionals spanning trading, sales, compliance, risk management, operations and IT – are in. And they are conclusive: the industry remains uneasy over the level of accuracy transcription engines offer.‍

The financial sector is one of the most vast and complex industries in the world, and the utility and impact of advancing transcription services will vary greatly across its countless roles, departments and sectors. With this in mind, we want to canvass the opinions of our broad network to gauge where transcription could have the most – or the least – impact, as well as how it is perceived by those at the coalface of markets.

This week marked 15 years since Bernie Madoff – declared ‘the monster of Wall Street’ by a harrowing Netflix documentary on his demise – pled guilty to masterminding the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an eye-watering $65bn. Formerly one of the most revered and respected figures on Wall Street, the one-time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison, eventually dying three years to the day on April 14, next month.

Few instant messaging apps have made the headlines as often as Telegram Messenger over recent months. The latest is that a Spanish court has u-turned on its move to temporarily suspend Telegram nationwide, after media firms complained of intellectual property rights violations.

An eye-catching story broke last week around the ongoing regulatory crackdown on instant messaging misconduct across the financial services industry. After several years of the Securities and Exchange Commission – among other regulators – imposing hefty fines on financial institutions for failing to preserve work texts sent by employees on messaging apps, it appears several large hedge funds and private equity firms are beginning to launch a sort of counteroffensive against the regulator.

If Nvidia’s unprecedented growth is anything to go by, the future looks more than bright for AI. Heralded as the ‘most important stock’ on planet Earth by Goldman Sachs’ trading desk, the chipmaker last week revealed stunning financial results that exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.

Leading City compliance professionals have been bombarded with reasons to enhance their employee communications surveillance capabilities over recent months, with fresh headlines making the case on an almost daily basis.

We couldn’t even reach Shrove Tuesday this year before news of another significant round of messaging-related penalties hit the headlines. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) handed out $81m worth of penalties to 16 financial institutions.

Over the last few months, we have witnessed a flurry of insider trading allegations and convictions. One of the most recent came on January 11, when US attorneys announced the guilty pleas of former Goldman Sachs and Blackstone Group employee Anthony Viggiano, who admitted to tipping off close friends about a series of large deals, including a $2.2bn investment by the private-equity group into insurer AIG.

Block trading, whereby an investment bank privately trades a large batch of shares of a given company, has not been immune to criticism over recent decades. Much of the negativity surrounding block trading is routed in its inherent lack of transparency, which leaves the practice open to an elevated risk of insider trading and market abuse....

By now you are of course well aware of the phrase ‘greenwashing’, but beware: there is a new term in town. Last month, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler publicly warned businesses against ‘AI washing’, whereby firms make false claims over their use of artificial intelligence in much the same way others have over their unfounded sustainability assertions. The warning comes after the Federal Trade Commission in February cautioned companies that it would be on the lookout for bogus AI claims.

While many of us will be making tough lifestyle changes this January, from adopting strict fitness regimes to cutting down on calories, there are other changes afoot in the realm of WhatsApp that could impact many of us over the coming days. For regulatory compliance teams at financial institutions worldwide, these could spell an unhappy start to the new year if precautions are not taken.

The dramatic rise of AI intrigued financial markets, the fallout of 2022’s sweep of WhatsApp fines for the major banks continued to spill over, and spoofing continued to make headlines throughout the year. In this blog we take a look at just some of the key news stories which rocked financial markets and regulated industries over the last 12 months.

Last week, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) fined BofA Securities $24 million for more than 700 – yes 700 - instances of spoofing through two former traders, over a period of 8 years.

The recent sacking of Goldman Sachs' global head of transaction banking services, Hari Moorthy, once again spotlights a complex dilemma facing banking compliance professionals across the world: what to do about WhatsApp?

Earlier this month, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) fined Dubai-based FFA Private Bank $370,000 over the firm’s failure to identify, assess and report instances of suspected market abuse by traders between 2018 and 2021.

Over the past month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commissions (CFTC) stance on transparency and accountability in swap markets has been stronger than Suella Braverman’s immigration rhetoric – and that is saying something!

Every man, woman and their dogs are talking about AI right now – but it seems they are only doing so in the abstract. Worryingly, even global institutional investors appear to be gripped by the constant hype and hyperbole....

London/New York – 28th September 2021 – VoxSmart Ltd., the global leader in communications surveillance, has announced the acquisition of GreenKey Technologies Inc., the industry-leading automated speech recognition (“ASR”) and natural language processing (“NLP”) provider, to further bolster its communications surveillance offering to global financial institutions.