Financial Firms Need Compliance Software Created With Users In Mind
Excellent user experience makes for end users who will actually use the software. Here’s why StarCompliance built the STAR Platform with the employee and administrative end user fully in mind
The responsibility to protect financial firms from regulatory trouble falls squarely on the shoulders of compliance teams. Fulfilling this responsibility means ensuring that employees complete compliance-related tasks in a timely and accurate manner, but that’s often easier said than done. Many financial services employees are already swamped with their core responsibilities and see compliance tasks as nothing more than an annoying administrative drain.
On the other hand, compliance officers know a firm risks losing deals and profits if it doesn’t operate within regulatory bounds. What’s more, missing important compliance tasks could cause employees to miss out on personal trade opportunities, as well. Compliance teams must make compliance tasks as straightforward and efficient as possible to protect their firms and employees.
The right compliance software can help. But software built with overly complex workflows or confusing interfaces can be even more time-consuming and challenging to handle than manual processes. That’s why the STAR Platform was made with the end user in mind. Built-in training and education tools help employees get up to speed quickly, and a user-friendly interface keeps them checking off compliance tasks with ease.
IMPROVING THE COMPLIANCE SOFTWARE USER EXPERIENCE
Star’s objective is to provide a tool that will reduce compliance teams’ workloads by improving the user experience and empowering employees to better manage compliance-related tasks. When employees can get compliance tasks out of the way quickly and completely, they can get back to the high-value work they’re paid to do, and compliance teams can spend less time chasing them down.
The STAR Platform focuses on sensibility and simplicity in every feature. For example, it adds descriptive section headers and clear text explanations to every compliance form employees might need to complete. This lessens the chance they’ll have to stop in the middle of a task to ask a compliance officer for help. The software can also create user groups based on employee data to show only the fields and questions relevant to employees’ roles, so they don’t waste any time on irrelevant tasks.
Along with forms, the STAR Platform creates a more sensible attestation and certification process. Instead of having to first validate, update, and manually report transactions from a previous quarter—and then attest to the accuracy of those activities—employees can simply review an automatically compiled list of activities and sign off on its validity. The STAR Platform automates such processes to eliminate the need for manual entry, minimize the chance for inaccuracies, and save employees time and effort. Employees and compliance officers can also benefit from automated pre-clearance processes, configurable automatic reminders, and single-screen navigation that streamlines every task from the start. It’s intuitive, fast, and efficient.
ENABLING CONVENIENT ON-THE-GO COMPLIANCE
Star also has employees and compliance officers covered for tasks that happen outside the office. Our mobile compliance app enables critical, time-sensitive workflows for use on-the-go. With STAR Mobile, employees can complete compliance-related tasks as efficiently, quickly, and accurately as if they were at their desks.
The app supports both personal account dealing compliance and gifts-and-entertainment compliance workflows. Employees can easily submit pre-clearance requests for trades or gifts and entertainment spending right from their phones, no matter where they are. Compliance officers can approve or deny requests from the mobile app as well. STAR Mobile also includes configurable automated approvals and denials, so compliance teams can decide which requests receive automatic responses and which automatically escalate for review.
In this way, employees receive assurance for trades and gifts and entertainment spending in a matter of moments, and compliance officers are freed from their desks knowing they can approve or deny requests from anywhere. And STAR Mobile improves user experience beyond the app alone, with features that make it easy for employees and compliance teams to jump right in:
- A familiar interface: STAR Mobile has a look and feel similar to the STAR desktop app, so compliance officers and employees who have used the STAR desktop app can transition to using STAR Mobile without much of a learning curve. And just like on the desktop app, employees can submit requests and view a complete list of existing transactions from one easy-to-read screen.
- Single sign-on: The STAR Mobile app also uses the same sign-on credentials as the STAR desktop app. Single sign-on functionality means employees and compliance officers can log in easily without keeping track of additional information.
- Mobile device management solutions: Before you integrate the STAR Mobile app into your employees’ workflows, we can help you preconfigure its setup to meet your precise needs. This can enhance your corporate data security while ensuring that the app is ready to use as soon as it lands in employees’ hands.
REIMAGINING COMPLIANCE WITH USER EXPERIENCE IN MIND
Regulatory compliance is vital to keep firm risk low, but you can’t expect employees to devote all their time and attention to completing cumbersome tasks, nor would you want them to. The solution? Relieve the administrative burden with excellent compliance-software user experience. When compliance tasks become as easy as a few clicks on a screen, employees can focus on the high-value work you hired them for and compliance teams can focus on keeping the firms out of regulatory trouble.