Google Workspace: Enabling FINRA compliance and enhanced capabilities for Financial Services organizations

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules and regulations are designed to protect investors, maintain fair and orderly markets, and ensure the integrity of the securities industry. Failing to meet these requirements can lead to disciplinary actions against firms and individuals, including fines that totaled more than $75M in 2024. At Google Workspace, we are continuing to build controls that empower financial institutions to embrace digital transformation, drive innovation, and serve their customers with unparalleled confidence and security in an increasingly regulated world. 

Today, Google Workspace is pleased to launch the general availability for FINRA compliance, including the support for SEC Rule 17a-4, SEC Rule 18a-6, and financial services regulations like CFTC §1.31. This reflects our dedication to meeting the unique needs of heavily regulated global industries.

Support for FINRA compliance

Our FINRA compliance solution is meticulously engineered to address critical recordkeeping, supervision/surveillance, and oversight requirements for financial regulations, by partnering with an ecosystem of trusted partners. Central to our approach is the preservation of records in a non-rewritable, non-erasable (WORM) format, aligning with the regulations SEC Rules 17a-4(f)(2)(i)(B) and 18a-6(e)(2)(i)(B). 

The compliant capabilities in Workspace to support FINRA compliance include:

• Gmail, Chat, Calendar: These core communication tools offer robust archival journaling functionality designed to support compliance needs. This helps to ensure that electronic communications are captured and preserved transparently to the user, meeting essential record-keeping standards.

• Drive: Our records management solution helps organizations to manage critical documents with appropriate retention policies, securely stored and readily accessible.

• Meet: Support for recordings and storage, helping to ensure that all necessary conversations and associated artifacts are captured and stored in a compliant fashion. 

For customers in regulated industries, these steps are critical to supporting their needs on a global scale. Support for FINRA compliance continues our work to meet the needs of customers in regulated industries with both policy and technical measures.  

For example, Gmail natively supports FINRA compliance and, in addition, highly-regulated industries, such as the financial services sector, can benefit from protecting their most sensitive information with client-side encryption. We recently introduced the capability to send end-to-end encrypted Gmail messages to any user on any inbox with just a few clicks, eliminating the need for end users to manually exchange certificates or use custom software. The emails are protected using encryption keys controlled by the customer and stored outside of Google, rendering customer data indecipherable to Google and other third-party entities and providing enhanced data privacy, security, and compliance with regulatory standards.     

A rich ecosystem of trusted partners with broad industry support

Workspace has consistently prioritized an ecosystem-first approach, and our new FINRA compliance solution is a testament to our partnership strategy. We are proud to announce partnerships with industry-leading Digital Communications Governance and Archiving (DCGA) vendors to ensure seamless integration and comprehensive compliance capabilities for our customers: 

• Our partnership with AODocs for an out-of-the-box records management solution, supporting Drive document workflows and archiving with retention policies, offers a best of breed solution to our customers. 

• Mimecast, Smarsh, and Global Relay, leaders in the DCGA space, are supporting this launch, providing vital connectors that enable the compliant flow of Workspace data into their sophisticated archiving solutions. 

Furthering our commitment to the security and resilience of the financial services sector, Google has recently announced a new joint effort with FS-ISAC: the Financial Services branch of Google's Priority Flagger Program. This collaboration combines Google's advanced threat detection capabilities with FS-ISAC's extensive network and intelligence sharing, accelerating fraud prevention and detection for financial institutions. This initiative underscores our proactive stance in safeguarding against evolving cyber threats, leveraging collective intelligence for a more secure ecosystem.

Independent attestation 

To provide financial institutions with the utmost assurance, Cohasset and Associates, a trusted choice in compliance consulting, will be providing an attestation for Workspace's FINRA solution. This independent validation is a crucial component in our unwavering commitment to the financial services industry, reinforcing our dedication to meeting and exceeding the rigorous standards demanded by financial regulatory bodies.

Supporting the financial services industry 

We hear from customers in the financial services sector that they want to be able to offer their employees global communication solutions and intuitive productivity tools without increasing compliance complexity, cyber security risks, and costs. With the support of FINRA compliance, companies in the financial services industry now have access to a secure, reliable collaboration suite trusted by more than 11M organizations. 

Stay tuned for additional developments, including enhanced features like forced recordings in Meet and further expanded support for financial services compliance regulations. We invite you to watch the Google Workspace: Secure and compliant collaboration for regulated industries recap from Cloud Next 2025 and contact us on this journey towards a more secure, compliant, resilient, and future-ready financial ecosystem.