March 29, 2023

The Intersection of Compliance & Customer Support with Scott Benson

37 minutes

Scott Benson, a compliance and risk veteran with an impressive background in the startup industry, joins us on podcast to discuss the importance of compliance in ensuring excellent customer support. Scott explains why compliance should not be seen as simply a cost of doing business, stating that if companies are operating in a regulated space without the controls that are mandated by their regulatory obligations, it can be fatal for their business. He adds that compliance may not generate revenue like other functions, but it is still essential to ensure the longevity of the company. Scott also touches on the concept of business ethics and how they are applied today. The conversation will help startups better understand the importance of compliance in customer support and how to ensure they are operating in a compliant way.

Scott discussed the importance of having a strong relationship between customer support and compliance, stating that customer support is often the team that best understands the interconnectedness and capabilities of a platform. He said that it is important to have a compliance team, no matter the size, that is engaged with the other teams and that customer support should be included in this engagement. He also highlighted that customer support often interacts with customers on a daily basis and, as a result, has a better understanding of the back end and front end of the platform and is often the best team to turn to when questions arise.

Timestamps

0:02:56 Discussion on Assigning Value to Compliance Efforts

0:04:27 The Benefits of Early Compliance Involvement in Fintech Product Development

0:07:26 The Importance of a Strong Relationship Between Support and Compliance

0:09:32 The Role of Customer Support in Compliance and Fraud Monitoring

0:12:44 The Benefits of Open Engagement Between Compliance and Customer Support Teams

0:14:40 Compliance and Risk Teams: Balancing Innovation and Structure

0:17:15 Exploring Flexibility and Creative Solutions for Compliance and Customer Satisfaction

0:18:48 The Fine Line Between Over and Under Communication in Customer Experience

0:25:35 The Impact of Risk Aversion on Brand Management

0:31:32 The Regulatory Landscape of Fintech Companies

0:33:33 Regulatory Competency and Banking as a Service for Fintech Platforms

Quote Highlights

"So without a doubt, over the last ten years, ten years I've been in the financial services, fintech industry, regulators have definitely become more experienced, they're more knowledgeable. Your ability as someone who is operating a fintech platform or who hopes to operate a fintech platform. If your plan is to go in and kind of razzle-dazzle a regulator with a lot of techie type buzzwords because you think you're going to overwhelm them and the regulator is just going to slink away, not the case anymore."

"Just even this recent experience that you have just reinforces why fintech companies became so popular and have blossomed over the last however many years. That was due in no small part to the fact that your legacy financial institutions, the Citigroups, the J. P. Morgans, the bank of Americas of the world, they struggle with customer support, they struggle with customer experience."

"It's very possible that you've got a one person team, you might have one compliance person, one fraud person, you might have one person doing compliance and fraud. There's got to be active and open engagement between compliance staff, your customer support team, your CS team. When you have a good level of communication between these two different teams, that's how you identify trends. That's how you identify patterns and trends and patterns that automated monitoring may have overlooked or it might not be something that your automated monitoring solution isn't even structured to detect."

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