Hearsay Connector

Financial Adviser Digital Engagement & Communications | Connector for Hearsay

What Is the Shield Connector for Hearsay?

Hearsay Systems provides the Hearsay Client Engagement Platform — a digital communications and compliance management platform purpose-built for the financial services industry, used by more than 200,000 financial advisers, agents, and relationship managers at wealth management firms, insurance companies, broker-dealers, and financial advisory organisations globally. The Hearsay platform enables regulated financial professionals to engage with clients and prospects across digital channels — including social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter/X), text and SMS (via Hearsay Relate), email, and adviser websites — within a supervised, compliance-aware environment that provides built-in workflow controls, supervision tooling, and archiving capabilities.

Shield’s connector for Hearsay ingests social communications, text messages, and engagement records from the Hearsay platform directly into Shield’s compliance platform, making every captured Hearsay interaction available for AI-powered surveillance, investigation, and eDiscovery alongside every other channel the firm uses. From the moment data enters Shield, it is available within a single unified platform — ensuring that Hearsay-managed adviser communications are subject to the same active surveillance and cross-channel investigation capability as Bloomberg IB, email, and every other regulated channel.

Hearsay data does not exist in isolation. Shield ensures that Hearsay records are available alongside every other channel in a single unified investigation and examination workflow.

Why Hearsay Compliance Is Complex

Hearsay communications present compliance challenges that reflect the specific characteristics of a multi-channel financial adviser engagement platform and the regulatory sensitivity of adviser-client digital communications. Several issues arise consistently across regulated firms:

• Multi-channel compliance across social, text, and email. Hearsay consolidates adviser communications across social media, SMS/text, email, and websites in a single platform — each with different regulatory obligations, different supervision requirements, and different risk profiles. Social media content is subject to FINRA Rule 2210, FCA COBS financial promotions rules, and SEC advertising regulations. Adviser-client text messages are subject to off-channel recordkeeping obligations. Adviser websites may constitute financial promotions. A complete Hearsay compliance programme requires surveillance capability across all of these communication types simultaneously.
• Supervision workflows versus active surveillance. Hearsay provides compliance supervision tools — including content pre-approval workflows, supervision queues, and archiving — that address the platform-level compliance management requirement for adviser digital communications. What Hearsay does not provide is AI-powered misconduct surveillance that identifies specific behavioural risk signals, cross-channel correlation that correlates Hearsay communications with Bloomberg IB, email, and voice, or the investigation and eDiscovery workflows required for regulatory examination responses. Firms that rely on Hearsay’s built-in supervision without integrating Hearsay data into a dedicated compliance surveillance platform are meeting the supervision workflow requirement without meeting the surveillance obligation.
• SEC Marketing Rule compliance for adviser social and digital content. The SEC’s Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1) imposes specific requirements on investment adviser advertising and marketing — including social media content, testimonials, endorsements, and performance presentations — that are directly applicable to adviser content managed through Hearsay. Compliance surveillance of Hearsay social content must be calibrated for Marketing Rule risk typologies alongside the standard FINRA Rule 2210 framework.
• Adviser-client text message compliance. Hearsay Relate enables advisers to communicate with clients via text/SMS in a supervised, compliant environment. However, the text messages generated through Hearsay Relate carry the same off-channel recordkeeping and surveillance obligations as any other adviser-client SMS channel — and must be captured and surveilled within a dedicated compliance platform with AI misconduct detection, not only stored within Hearsay’s own archiving infrastructure.
• Cross-channel continuity in adviser client relationships. Adviser client relationships managed through Hearsay span social media engagement, text messages, email, and phone — but the same client relationship is also documented in the firm’s CRM, in email archives, and in voice recordings. Compliance architectures that hold Hearsay data separately from these other channels produce incomplete adviser client communication records that cannot support complete suitability reviews, complaint handling, or regulatory examination responses.

Key Features of the Shield Hearsay Connector

Complete Multi-Channel Hearsay Communication Capture. Shield captures all compliance-relevant Hearsay communications — including social media posts and interactions from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter/X managed through Hearsay, adviser-client text messages via Hearsay Relate, email communications, and engagement records — alongside the full metadata layer generated by the Hearsay platform. All data is ingested in full, with zero data loss across all Hearsay communication channels.

Full Hearsay Metadata Preservation. Shield retains and enriches the complete Hearsay metadata layer — including account and adviser identifiers, communication channel type, platform identifiers, timestamps, message and post identifiers, approval workflow records, supervision event data, and engagement context. This metadata is preserved in its original form, made fully searchable, and stored as part of the immutable compliance record.

AI Surveillance Models for Adviser Digital Communications. Shield applies pre-configured AI surveillance models to Hearsay communications — targeting behaviours including misleading market commentary, non-compliant financial promotions, selective MNPI disclosure, inappropriate client solicitation, suitability failures, and personal misconduct, calibrated for both the social media content and adviser-client messaging contexts. Models incorporate SEC Marketing Rule risk typologies alongside FINRA Rule 2210 standards and can be customised to reflect the firm’s specific adviser communication policies.

Immutable, Audit-Ready Archive. All Hearsay data captured by Shield is stored in a tamper-evident, WORM-compliant archive with a complete audit trail. Retention periods are fully configurable — including the six-year standard under SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 and applicable FINRA retention standards.

Unified Cross-Channel Client Adviser Record. Hearsay data does not exist in isolation. Shield ingests Hearsay communications into the same unified compliance platform as email, phone, and every other adviser communication channel — enabling compliance teams to correlate Hearsay social posts and text messages with the full adviser client communication record across all sources. This cross-channel context supports complete suitability documentation, complaint handling, and regulatory examination responses.

Data Governance and Chain of Custody. Shield’s Hearsay connector preserves a complete, verifiable chain of custody from ingestion through archiving and retrieval, giving compliance officers and legal teams confidence that Hearsay records are admissible, complete, and unaltered throughout their lifecycle.

Regulatory Coverage

Hearsay communications generated by regulated advisers in connection with their regulated practice are classified as business records subject to capture, retention, and surveillance requirements. The Shield Hearsay connector supports compliance with:

• SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 — requiring broker-dealers to capture, preserve, and produce records of all business communications including adviser digital and social communications, in WORM-compliant format for a minimum of six years.
• SEC Investment Adviser Act Rules 204-2 and Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1) — requiring registered investment advisers to maintain records of client communications and to comply with specific requirements for advertising and marketing communications — directly applicable to adviser social media, text, and digital content managed through Hearsay.
• FINRA Rules 4511, 3110, and 2210 — requiring member firms to archive all business communications, to supervise public communications including social media, and to ensure adviser communications are fair, balanced, and not misleading. FINRA Rule 2210 specifically governs social media and digital communications by registered representatives.
• MiFID II Article 16(7) and Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) — applicable to firms with EU-regulated operations whose advisers use Hearsay for client communications involving investment products and regulated services.
• FCA Rules (SYSC 10A, COBS 4, and MAR) — requiring FCA-regulated firms to retain relevant communications, comply with financial promotions standards, and implement surveillance — applicable to adviser Hearsay communications in FCA-regulated wealth management and advisory contexts.
• GDPR and applicable data privacy regulations — Shield’s architecture supports data residency requirements and privacy-compliant data handling, applicable to Hearsay adviser and client communication records.

Other Related Connectors

Shield’s connector portfolio spans the full range of eComms channels and trading platforms used across regulated financial institutions. All connectors feed into a single unified compliance platform, so Hearsay data is always reviewed in the context of every other channel your adviser and client-facing teams use.

• FA Social
• LinkedIn
• Twitter (X)
• Facebook
• BFS Salesforce
• E-Banking
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft Teams
• WhatsApp Business
• Voice and Turret
• Mobile (SMS/MMS)
• Gmail

Frequently Asked Questions

Hearsay has built-in compliance tools — why does Shield also need to capture Hearsay data?

Hearsay’s built-in compliance capabilities — supervision workflows, content approval, and archiving — address the platform-level compliance management requirement for adviser digital communications. What they do not provide is AI-powered misconduct surveillance that identifies specific behavioural risk signals across the adviser communication record, cross-channel correlation that connects Hearsay communications with Bloomberg IB, email, and voice, or the investigation and eDiscovery workflows required for regulatory examination responses. Shield applies these capabilities to Hearsay-captured data, completing the compliance chain from adviser engagement platform through to active surveillance.

Does the Hearsay connector cover all Hearsay communication channels — social, text, and email?

Yes. Shield’s Hearsay connector captures communications across all Hearsay-managed channels — social media posts and interactions from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter/X, adviser-client text messages via Hearsay Relate, email communications, and engagement records — in the same unified compliance archive.

Which regulations does the Shield Hearsay connector help firms comply with?

The connector supports compliance with SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, SEC Investment Adviser Act Rules 204-2 and Marketing Rule 206(4)-1, FINRA Rules 4511, 3110, and 2210, MiFID II, Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), FCA SYSC 10A, COBS 4, and MAR, and applicable data privacy regulations including GDPR.

Can Hearsay data be reviewed alongside email and other channels during an investigation?

Yes. Shield ingests Hearsay data into the same unified compliance archive as email, Bloomberg IB, phone, and every other adviser communication channel. Suitability reviews, client complaints, and regulatory examinations frequently require access to the complete adviser client communication record — including Hearsay social posts, text messages, and engagement records alongside email and voice. Shield enables compliance teams to reconstruct the full adviser communication record in a single workflow.

How should firms approach the supervision of adviser communications in Hearsay?

Effective Hearsay compliance requires both Hearsay’s built-in supervision workflows and a dedicated compliance surveillance infrastructure. Hearsay’s supervision tools manage the approval and review process for adviser digital communications; Shield applies AI-powered surveillance to the full Hearsay communication record to identify misconduct signals, regulatory risk patterns, and cross-channel conduct risk. Policy, supervision workflow, and AI surveillance together constitute a complete Hearsay compliance programme.