As insider risk evolves beyond traditional trade surveillance, financial services firms need a more connected view of employee activity, communications and access to sensitive information.
Regulators are increasingly looking beyond whether a firm can identify a suspicious trade. They also want firms to understand who had access to inside information, how that information moved through the organisation, who communicated about it and whether employee behaviour changed around key events.
These challenges were among the issues discussed at the Gartner Enterprise Risk, Audit & Compliance Conference 2027 in London, 28-29 September, which brought together risk, audit and compliance leaders to examine the changing risk landscape and the strategies and technologies firms need to respond.
Speaking at the conference, Keith Pyke, Director of Solutions Consulting at MCO, presented Is Your Insider Risk Strategy Fit for What’s Next?, exploring how insider risk has evolved and what compliance teams should be thinking about as they strengthen their programmes.
“Insider risk is no longer just about identifying a suspicious trade after it happens,” said Pyke. “Firms are dealing with more communications channels, more complex flows of information and a working environment where sensitive information can move in ways that are much harder to see. Regulators increasingly expect firms to connect the dots across trading, communications, access to inside information and employee behaviour. That requires compliance teams to think much more broadly about how they identify and investigate risk.”
The shift is moving firms from a narrow focus on trade surveillance toward broader employee conduct surveillance and behavioural risk management. Effective insider risk controls increasingly span access to inside information, employee and communications surveillance, trade surveillance and investigative correlation across multiple datasets.
For compliance teams, the challenge is bringing those signals together. When employee activity, communications, trading, conflicts and access to inside information sit in separate systems, it can be difficult to see relationships that could indicate heightened risk.
“The ability to identify risk depends on having the right information in context,” said Paul Giardina, Chief Marketing Officer at MCO. “The MyComplianceOffice platform brings together data across employees, transactions, communications, conflicts and other compliance activities, helping firms build a more complete picture of what’s happening across the organisation. That connected view gives compliance teams the context they need to identify potential issues sooner, investigate more effectively and demonstrate strong oversight.”
MCO’s integrated approach to insider risk management connects information including employee activity and communications, personal trading, restricted and watch lists, outside business activities, relationships, conflicts and firm trading activity. Surveillance rules can identify suspicious activity, generate alerts and escalate those alerts into cases for further investigation.
To learn how MCO helps financial services firms connect employee activity, communications, trading and inside information to strengthen insider risk management, contact us today.
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