LONDON, August 17, 2017 – Smarsh^®, providing information archiving solutions for compliance, e-discovery and risk management, has completed the acquisition of Cognia, a worldwide leader in cloud-based voice archiving, audio search and analytics. Smarsh will leverage Cognia’s intellectual property and development resources to offer its global customer base enhanced capabilities around mobile and fixed-line voice communication – alongside a market-leading range of electronic communications –  within The Archiving Platform. The acquisition will expand the existing presence of Smarsh in Europe and is central to its MiFID II compliance solution for financial firms.

In addition to capturing incoming and outgoing communication from fixed-line recording solutions, Cognia uniquely captures voice content directly from leading mobile carriers. Carrier-direct capture is the most reliable and automated method for capturing content for archival, and is quickly and easily deployed with no device-resident software to deploy and configure.

With the acquisition, Smarsh customers can quickly and securely search, analyse, monitor, and produce voice and other audio content. Voice content can be searched using both phonetic search capabilities and leading-edge transcription technology. In addition, conversations spanning archived voice, email, text messaging, social media, instant messaging and other types of electronic communications can be reconstructed with proper context, enabling firms to meet MiFID II requirements without the hassle of searching through separate archives.

“Smarsh is focused on providing worldwide financial institutions with the retention and oversight solutions to meet the latest regulatory requirements,” said Stephen Marsh, Smarsh founder and CEO. “Adding the innovative technology and team from Cognia is core to this strategy. It positions Smarsh as the only archiving provider directly capturing mobile voice content from the carriers, along with the most reliable and efficient technology solution to conduct oversight of all of their electronic communications in one place.”

Smarsh is actively helping financial organisations prepare to meet the recordkeeping and supervisory requirements under updates to the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and its accompanying regulation (MiFIR), which go into effect on January 3, 2018. The regulations affect organisations that operate and/or do business with European firms providing investment services in the European Economic Area, and there’s an urgent need to have systems and processes in place to capture, retain and reproduce complete records of all services, activities and transactions on firm and client accounts. This includes all telephone calls on fixed and mobile, and all forms of electronic communications related to a trade, created or received by an organisation’s employees and contractors.

“We are excited to join Smarsh, and together, we can offer the industry’s most complete, comprehensive solution to manage risk throughout the entire spectrum of communications,” said Cognia CEO Stewart Holness. “With MiFID II on the horizon, organizations will be able to efficiently confront their recordkeeping requirements with a partner that is committed to keeping them in compliance with the regulatory environment.”

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Smarsh enables financial institutions to meet the records retention and oversight requirements of organisations such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For more information on how Smarsh and The Archiving Platform help firms meet MiFID II and MiFIR recordkeeping and supervision requirements, read the Smarsh MiFID II solution brief.

About Smarsh

Smarsh® delivers a comprehensive and integrated suite of information archiving applications and services that help companies protect themselves and manage risk. Its centralized platform provides a unified compliance and e-discovery workflow across the entire range of digital communications, including email, social media, websites, instant messaging, mobile text messaging and voice. Founded in 2001, Smarsh helps more than 20,000 organizations meet regulatory compliance, e-discovery and record retention requirements. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with offices in New York City, Boston, Raleigh, N.C. and London.