Actiance, a provider of communications compliance, archiving and analytics, has been snapped up by K1 Investment Management.
The West Coast-based private equity firm said Actiance will combine with Smarsh, which provides archiving solutions for compliance, e-discovery and risk management. Together, Actiance and Smarsh will serve more than 6,500 financial services firms, including the top 15 global banks and regional, mid-size banks and broker-dealers. It will also provide services to government agencies and organizations in other regulated industries.
The acquisition will allow leading financial and government institutions to stay ahead of compliance within an increasingly complex and evolving legal and regulatory environment.
With the financial services sector is undergoing rapid change, legacy technologies are ‘no longer sufficient to comply with SEC and FINRA standards, let alone MiFID II’ according to K1 managing partner Neil Malik.
“This combination of capabilities from Actiance and Smarsh provides the industry with a means to get ahead – and stay ahead – of compliance trends, while introducing the latest communications technologies to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the modern enterprise”, he added.
The combined company offers deployment options (cloud, dedicated, on-premise, and hybrid) to meet the needs of its customers. It also provides capture, compliance, archiving, and supervision support across the broadest range of electronic communications, including email, social media, mobile messaging, instant messaging/collaboration, encrypted chat and voice communications.
It will maintain operations in Oregon, California, New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, North Carolina, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom.
According to a recent study of disciplinary actions from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), 99 books and records cases were reported in 2016, resulting in a 435% increase in fines compared to 2015.
Over the past years, the financial services industry is taking a closer look at how innovation is helping to resolve issues in compliance. Sovos, a tax compliance and reporting software business owned by private equity firms HgCapital and Vista Equity Partners, recently purchased FiscalReps.
Earlier this month Axiom, a provider of technology-enabled legal and contracting solutions, launched a new regulatory compliance solution. Riverside Partners also recently sold its stake in risk and compliance platform Pilgrim Quality Solutions to an unnamed buyer.
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