The transaction, a first of its kind in Markets surveillance, addresses calls for increased consolidation and demand for integrated compliance and surveillance solutions.
VoxSmart, the global leader in mobile surveillance technology, has announced its acquisition of the Fonetic Trading business to deliver a comprehensive communications surveillance offering for Capital Markets participants.
Recent high-profile regulatory investigations and prosecutions, such as the WhatsApp scandal at KPMG and the FCA’s prosecution of a VTB Banker over deleted WhatsApp messages, together with substantial market demand for greater consolidation of the RegTech landscape encouraged VoxSmart to acquire the Trading assets of Fonetic as a logical progression into the wider surveillance market.
Juan Manuel Soto, Chief Executive Officer at Fonetic commented, “We have seen time and time again the financial and reputational damage caused by un-monitored or ignored communications. Fixed line audio, mobile phones and messaging platforms like WhatsApp are seen as the weak spots in a bank’s surveillance capability, so are the first to be exploited by bad actors. By pooling our talent and technology, clients will not only benefit from enhanced data integration, but also increased visibility of their trading activity, thanks to a comprehensive suite of communications surveillance and intelligence technology.”
The Trading business of Fonetic, which includes a rich suite of multilingual voice and e-comms surveillance and intelligence tools as well as a powerful Trade Reconstruction engine, allows VoxSmart to offer market participants unrivalled consolidation of their communications data, while also amplifying their global reach and language coverage.
Having built a successful mobile surveillance business that is currently servicing over 100 global clients, incorporating additional communications channels by acquiring compatible technology was an obvious next step for VoxSmart.
“We have always worked closely with market participants to tackle global regulatory compliance challenges and we’ve seen overwhelming demand for multichannel and multilingual offerings that not only meet the communication surveillance needs of our clients but substantially ease their procurement and supply chain burden,” said Oliver Blower, Chief Executive Officer at VoxSmart “Welcoming the Fonetic team and technology adds to our surveillance pedigree, while helping us support institutions that are at the forefront of financial services.”
Fonetic will continue operating in the Customer Experience market, where they already have a significant commercial footprint providing pioneering services for Conversational Chatbots and Voicebots through NLP solutions, serving European and Latin American markets.
Further news on VoxSmart developments is expected in the new year.
