The annual Regulatory Compliance Conference for the American Bankers Association (ABA) took place in Orlando this past week (June 10-14, 2012), and we were pleased to attend and support the financial services community. Eric Nicolaisen, Charles Wong and myself were there exhibiting BlackBerry® solutions that address the regulatory compliance needs for mobility. The ABA was founded in 1875, and represents all banks (foreign, national, state, and local) that operate in the United States. Their primary activity is lobbying for policy and political presence in Washington, DC.

The key buzzwords at the Conference were Dodd-Frank, FINRA, and SOX, which address issues such as consumer protection & advocacy, archiving of oral & written communications, and auditing. Recent success stories around call recording and BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System were prominently featured, and invoked further discussions around BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion, BlackBerry® Balance™, and solutions to assist in facing the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend as banks are slowly allowing their employees to connect their personal devices to corporate messaging and applications.

Case studies that were showcased included Nomura (2012 Wireless Achievement Award Winner at BlackBerry World™) and Bank Am Bellevue. These EMEA-based banks had to comply with the UK’s FSA 10/17 Policy for Call Recording, and in each case, these banks achieve regulatory compliance. The case studies were relevant to all banks that operate in the UK and are engaged in activities that are regulated by FSA Policy 10/17, in addition to recent policies on archiving written & oral communications in Dodd-Frank. (Case studies are also posted at www.blackberry.com/mvs if you wish to read further on this)

BlackBerry’s presence at the conference was undoubtedly strong; many individuals were stopping us in the exhibit hall or even the elevators to share their passion for their BlackBerry devices. We were particularly excited to make attendees aware of the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet running OS 2.0. After demonstrating the features and capabilities, their first impressions were fantastic, especially for the winner of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that was drawn for a prize. Special congratulations go out to Mary Clouthier, VP of Enterprise Compliance at Fifth Third Bank, a major bank based in the midwest. To say she was happy about winning would be an understatement – she immediately asked where she could purchase a HDMI cable and BlackBerry® Mini Keyboard.

If you’ve come out of the conference hungry for more, check out details on BlackBerry solutions for the financial services industry, read more case studies, and don’t miss the CIO’s Guide to Call Recording with BlackBerry smartphones.

What regulations does your industry need to comply with? How have mobile solutions helped enable compliance? Share in the comments below.