The client offers fully automated all-in-one compliance platform for the global investments industry. They serve financial services providers with automated compliance solutions that enable regulatory protection, reduced risks, and brings down the operating costs. They aim to deliver thorough, unparalleled expertise in risk and compliance experiences to their customers.
Need for a solution specifically designed to be Federal Election Commission compliant
With the US Presidential Elections 2016 catching up on heat more than ever, some corporates and organizations saw it as their opportunity to buy political access and favorable consideration in current or future policy development by donating generously to political campaigns. The suspiciously large campaign donations or prohibited donations by employees can embroil an organization in a stew of controversy.
To address that, our client wanted a solution that could help organizations set clear mandates to regulate campaign contributions by employees and automatically flag violations.
- To set clear guidelines: The client wanted a solution that could set and define campaign donation guidelines aligned with the strategic business objectives, brand, and reputational goals of the company. The solution should clearly identify maximum contribution limit ensuring the giving policy is aligned with the broader objectives of the company.
- Regulate, approve / deny political contributions by employees: The client wanted to simplify and speed up approving or denying campaign contribution requests by employees.
A simple and automated way to effectively track and regulate employees’ political contribution requests
The client spelled out their expectations to have an end-to-end solution that leverages robust employee data model with elaborative dashboard capabilities. The solution needed to provide a roadmap to a more holistic, integrated compliance platform to keep employees’ political campaign contributions in check. As a strategic technology advisor, Persistent delivered a system which monitors contributions raised by employees and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in electoral contests. Furthermore, the solution helps the client:
- Spell out clear guidelines about the restricted and permitted contributions: The solution enables compliance officer to provide guidelines / rules for employee work groups, reporting cycles, government jurisdictions, restricted lists (where they can prohibit employees from soliciting or contributing to specific elected officials or candidate campaigns of political parties where they provide or seek government business), and approved lists (where employees can contribute to campaigns of selected elected officials or political parties).
- Regulate and automate approval of political contribution request: Pre-approvals can be fully or partially automated for manual compliance review and signoff. The requestor (employee) is notified via an email alert about the approved political contribution request. The system gives a comprehensive view of the employee account, providing vital information such as employee ID and their contribution history along with complete details regarding the requested contribution which the CA can review and approve. The system also enables pre-clearance of political contributions for all employees. The solution automatically flags violations when employees fail to pre-clear contributions, make prohibited contributions, or contribute more than permitted to the political campaigns more than permitted.
- Simplified reporting: The dynamic reporting system helps company’s compliance department generate and export reports to view all political contribution requests and reported contributions for all employees over a period. Compliance department can access aggregate amount contributed to political parties or candidates.
The solution has been successfully helping the client and their patrons automatically approve or deny political contribution requests based on the guidelines drafted on their broad reputational objectives. The dynamic system enables users to query the database or run reports from the database to keep a tab on employees’ political contributions.
Solution highlights
- Request and approval tracking
- Comprehensive dashboard view for compliance personnel
- Pre-clearance of political contributions based on set rules / guidelines
- Automated processing of employee certification and attached documents
- Automated response alerts for approval, exceptions, violations etc.
- Dynamic case management platform
