Sampo Bank to stop recording conversations between staff and customers

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The Finnish bancassurer Sampo says that it will stop recording conversations being held between the bank's staff and customers. Sampo announced the decision on Tuesday afternoon after a report on the practice by the newspaper Turun Sanomat raised a stir.
      On Tuesday morning, Sampo was still commenting that recordings would continue to be made for the purpose of training staff, but added that the customer would be informed if a conversation was to be recorded. In the afternoon, however, the bank decided to discontinue the practice.
     
Sampo's head of communications Hannu Vuola says that conversations were recorded at random at ten offices in the Helsinki region.
      The conversations that were recorded invovled the drafting of personal economic assessments for customers. The employee and his or her trainer would analyse the discussion soon after the recording was made, after which it was destroyed.
      "We decided that we would not continue this process, even though it is a common system in other areas. It no longer fits in with our working procedures", Vuola said in the afternoon.
     
Finland's Data Protection Ombudsman Reijo Aarnio called the practice a questionable one. Harri Hirvi, a lawyer for the Financial Supervision Authority, said that the customer should be informed if a recording was being made for any purpose other than the implementation of the banking service in question.
      Markus Fogelholm, managing director of the Finnish Bankers' Association, is pleased that Sampo has decided to discontinue the practice.
      "I think that it is reasonable for the customer to know if his or her conversations are recorded. Money matters are always sensitive", he commented.
      Fogelholm says that Sampo's procedure was unique in the world of Finnish banking.
     
However, it is standard practice in the banking world to record telephone calls concerning the buying and selling of securities. The purpose is to safeguard the interests of both parties.
      "The practice is written into a contract that the customer signs", Fogelholm says.
      The aim is to make sure that in security trading, both the buyer and the broker have understood the matter, and that in any disagreement, it would be possible to confirm exactly what was agreed upon. Fogelholm also says that there has been discussion within the EU to expand the practice of recording conversations as a way to enhance a customer's protection under the law. However, he does not feel that such a move would be sensible.
      "Maintaining archives of the recordings would be so expensive that it would make no sense", he says.


Links:
  Sampo
  Data Protection Ombudsman

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