IT departments across regulated sectors are facing an unprecedented challenge: managing the sheer volume of communications data created daily.
According to Wordwatch, from emails and instant messages to voice recordings and collaborative tool logs, these digital interactions are growing at pace. Firms must retain, protect, and retrieve this data to comply with regulations like MiFID II, GDPR, DORA, and SM&CR — all while working within outdated, siloed infrastructures.
Legacy systems, designed for smaller data footprints and less regulatory scrutiny, are now a critical weakness. Many organisations rely on a patchwork of disconnected recording solutions that introduce inefficiencies, limit visibility, and increase the risk of non-compliance. IT teams face a growing burden: escalating storage costs, slow data retrieval times, and limited ability to scale with hybrid or cloud-first strategies.
Wordwatch is stepping in to relieve this pressure. Designed for scale, the platform enables organisations to centralise their communications data across channels, from voice and SMS to email and instant messaging, in a single architecture. By consolidating systems, Wordwatch simplifies operations, reduces maintenance costs, and dramatically improves infrastructure performance. One Tier 1 bank reportedly reduced its storage infrastructure by 90% after consolidating ten legacy systems using Wordwatch.
At its core, Wordwatch offers powerful ingestion and search capabilities. It can handle billions of records and return search results in seconds — even under demanding regulatory investigations. This enables faster compliance responses and supports real-time decision-making across departments.
Deployment flexibility is another strength. Whether cloud, on-premises, or hybrid, Wordwatch allows IT teams to align with security and data residency requirements without compromising control. Automated retention and lifecycle management also ensure that data is kept only as long as required by regulation, easing storage pressures and reducing risk.
Security is embedded throughout the platform. With chain-of-custody protocols, role-based access, and detailed audit trails, Wordwatch helps firms meet the highest standards of data governance. Crucially, legal and compliance teams can self-serve without relying on IT for everyday record retrieval — freeing up tech resources for more strategic initiatives.
By aligning with broader IT transformation goals, Wordwatch supports consolidation, fast access, regulation-ready storage, and system interoperability through open APIs. These features feed critical data into surveillance tools, analytics engines, and case management platforms — ensuring that information flows efficiently across the business.
Performance benchmarks highlight the platform’s impact: up to 62x faster data ingestion, 166x faster record retrieval, and 87% reduction in storage footprint, all with zero loss of original media quality. These improvements have been realised across financial services, healthcare, telecoms, and public sector organisations.
As communications data continues to grow in complexity and volume, future-ready platforms like Wordwatch are essential. They empower IT teams to scale confidently, meet compliance demands, and reduce operational strain — positioning firms for long-term resilience and digital success.
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