The new system, called Unipass Mailock, enables advisers to securely communicate with their clients, from their desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile phone.
From an audit perspective, advisers, platforms and providers can confirm when an authenticated client has received, opened and accessed the content, de-risking the necessary task of sending confidential client communications.
Anthony Rafferty, managing director of Origo, said: "Secure messaging is an imperative for the financial services industry, which handles a huge number of emails every day, often containing personal and sensitive information.
"With the increasing frequency and impact of cybercrimes, Origo will enable an easy-to-use, secure messaging system so essential for the industry. This solution helps deliver GDPR compliance and a level of data control simply not available until now.”
Paul Holland, Beyond Encryption's founder and chief executive, said: "With Origo’s Unipass Identity service already serving most of the financial adviser market, we will make it incredibly easy for advisers, providers and platforms to adopt Unipass Mailock.
"The tracking and audit capabilities open up the potential for massive savings by replacing paper and postage costs, which under Mifid II are likely to rise significantly unless solutions like this are implemented.
"Additionally, the Beyond Encryption platform provides a unique approach to identity assurance thereby enabling message data to travel safely across the internet with its release being subject to authentication of the intended recipient’s identity."
Garry Miller, operations director at Origo, said: “These principles are fundamental to addressing the Information Commissioner's Office’s guidelines and conformity with the evolving data legislation such as GDPR.
"Importantly the solution not only helps users meet regulatory requirements, it can also significantly reduce costs, economic and ecological, and improves customer experience."
Roland Rawicz-Szczerbo, founding director of Time4Advice, said managing essential client communications with absolute confidence is imperative for all financial advice firms, as is protecting their customers data.
He said: "Unipass Mailock addresses such concerns head on and Time4Advice are keen supporters of this development."
Ian McKenna, founder and managing director of the Financial Technology Research Centre, said: "Email is an essential business communication tool and advisers need to be able to use it to communicate with platforms, asset managers, life companies, mortgage lenders and other business partners, safe in the knowledge that they are not inadvertently risking a breach of GDPR or otherwise putting client data at risk.
"There are a range of software solutions in the market with this type of capability, but the industry needs a single solution that can be used by all.
"Beyond Encryption and Origo partnering to deliver such an arrangement is a very positive development and, with the all-important widespread adoption across the financial services community, is a very welcome step in the right direction."
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on May 25 2018.
GDPR requires financial services providers to meet the highest standards of data security when it comes to transferring data to third parties, such as custodian banks or other service providers.
emma.hughes@ft.com
