UK-based EE has unveiled secure Mobile Voice Recording and high security mobility management solutions as part of a new “In The City” strategy targeting banks and financial services organisations.
The mobile operator is offering the first network-integrated voice call recording service in the UK to full comply with mobile trading regulations from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The FCA – a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation – has mobile trading regulations that require all mobile phone communications relating to transactions in the equity, bond, derivative and financial commodity markets to be recorded, to help deter and detect market abuse.
Mobile Voice Recording ensures all mobile phone calls made by financial traders are recorded transparently and cost effectively, including calls made from abroad to the UK, which become more affordable than normal international mobile voice calls.
No apps are required as EE routes the call through partner Etrali’s call centre, where a sophisticated rules engine determines whether the call should be recorded or not.
If a mobile device is set up to be recorded, Etrali will record the call, encrypt it and store it in a secure private cloud, which the customer has access to via a web portal with a two-factor authentication.
Alternatively, the call data can be immediately streamed down to the customers’ in-house recording solution, so Etrali stores no data at all.
To make the solution work, Etrali has teamed up with Natterbox, a mobile call recording solutions provider, to provide the voice recorder software, which is now integrated with EE’s network.
“We have our own app-based solution that’s still in existence and is in partnership with leaders in the mobile voice recording market, but the key thing was that our financial customers were not happy about that and we were aware that there was an unfulfilled need in the market,” EE’s Senior Propositions Manager Brian Colligan told Mobile Europe.
“The key point from a security point of view is that EE’s network terminates the call. We’re not splitting the call and sending a copy off to be recorded. The real call is being routed through our partner data centre as an integrated part of the network.”
Colligan explained that the reason the rules engine is so crucial is because it prevents problems with calls being recorded incorrectly due to routing through a third party app-based solution, whereby there is a danger of the call session dropping or being forwarding to voice mail.
“What we’ve done is to create a network token. If you apply that token to any mobile number, it’s associated with that mobile number and there’s no possibility of getting around that. The call made is a normal voice call and our intelligent network recognises the mobile number and will then include the data centre in the routing to the termination point, so only if all the points join up, will the call go ahead,” he said.
The Mobile Voice Recording solution is attached to a SIM card, so it will be activated no matter what handset the SIM card is put into, even old legacy handsets and feature phones.
For now, enterprises will continue to have their normal commercial agreements with EE, but the voice recording aspect will be handled directly by Etrali, with a view to eventually having integrated billing with the operator down the road.
Etrali charges £30 a month per user to record conversations, with an additional charge for storing the data that starts from £5 per month for six months’ worth of storage per user up to £20 per user per month for five years’ worth of storage.
The Mobile Voice Recording service also stores SMS text messages sent by mobile devices using the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10) Regulated-level Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), which is another new service EE will now offer to City businesses.
The BES 10 EMM enables enterprises to control device features such as the in-built camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity from a web-based management console, while managing work applications and restricting unapproved apps.
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