The Compliance Conversation Every Financial Firm Should Be Having With Its IT Partner

In today's fast-moving financial services world, firms face not only client demands and investment risks but an ever-shifting regulatory climate. Yet many of those same firms treat IT as simply an outsourced cost center, not a strategic compliance partner. That mindset is risky.

Your IT partner should already be asking tough questions about controls, audit readiness, regulatory alignment, data workflows and much more. If they aren't, you're exposing your firm to unnecessary risk.

At JNT TEK, we specialize in supporting financial-services firms managed IT, cybersecurity and compliance services tailored for the sector. This post lays out the key compliance questions every financial firm should raise with its IT partner and how to turn that conversation from "nice to have" into "must have."

Why this conversation matters more than ever

• Regulatory expectations aren't static. Whether you operate as an advisor, broker-dealer, private equity firm or bank, frameworks such as FINRA rules, SEC guidance, the FTC Safeguards Rule and other mandates demand rigorous IT controls and documentation.
• Firms increasingly live in a hybrid-cloud / remote-work world, which expands the attack surface and complicates audit readiness.
• Your IT infrastructure isn't just a cost; for a financial firm it is a compliance risk vector. Mis-configured systems, unmonitored collaboration tools, unmanaged data archives they all become audit exposure.

When your IT partner puts compliance questions to you first, you've shifted from reactive to proactive. That mind-shift is what differentiates firms that sleep well from firms that wake up to a regulatory surprise.

The questions your IT partner should be asking

Here are the high-impact questions you should raise and even better, hear your IT partner ask you.

1. What regulatory frameworks apply to your firm?

• Are you subject to FINRA Rule 3110, SEC Rule 204-2, CFTC regulations, or state-level cybersecurity/privacy laws?
• Which client data do you handle (PII, PHI, NPI) and where does it flow?
• Are you obligated to maintain archives of communications (email, chat, video) for audit-trail purposes?

If your IT partner isn't asking this, they may be deploying a generic solution not one built for your regulatory footprint.

2. How is your data accessed, stored, and archived?

• What systems hold your client records, trading logs, advisory communications, etc.?
• Where is that data stored: cloud, on-premises, hybrid?
• What is the archiving policy for communications (e.g., Zoom meetings, Teams chats, email threads)? At JNT TEK, we integrate tools like Theta Lake to archive chat, video and other communications.
• Are there retention policies tied to your regulatory obligations?

3. What controls and monitoring are in place?

• Is multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled universally?
• Are endpoint detection/response (EDR) tools in place?
• Do you have real-time or near-real-time monitoring of unusual access, data exfiltration, sharing anomalies?
• Is your IT partner producing audit-ready documentation of control testing, incidents, remediation?
• At JNT TEK, we emphasize layered cybersecurity plus compliance documentation for financial-services clients.

4. How will your systems be kept audit-ready?

• When an auditor walks in, can you present policies, workflows, change logs, access-control lists?
• How often are controls reviewed, gaps remediated, documentation updated?
• If your IT partner treats compliance as a one-time project instead of an ongoing discipline, you'll fall behind.

5. How do you handle vendor risk and third-party integrations?

• Many firms use multiple SaaS vendors, CRM tools, data-rooms how are those tools managed, secured and monitored?
• Does your IT partner have a vendor-management process that includes compliance assessments for third-parties?
• Are contracts, SLAs, data-flow diagrams maintained? These are often overlooked compliance gaps.

6. What is your incident response and business-continuity planning?

• A breach or outage is not just an IT issue it's a regulatory event.
• Your IT partner should ask: What's your disruption-plan? How will we isolate compromised systems, notify regulators/clients, restore operations?
• At JNT TEK, we build disaster-recovery and compliance-aligned continuity plans tailored to financial firms.

7. What training, culture and process governance are in place?

• Technology controls matter but people and process do too.
• How are employees trained on your data-handling practices, phishing awareness, secure collaboration?
• How often are policies reviewed, how are exceptions handled, who owns compliance governance?
• Your IT partner should be asking about your culture not just your tech.

How to structure the conversation with your IT partner

1. Pre-meeting: Request a compliance-gap questionnaire from your IT partner ahead of time, so everyone comes prepared.
2. Kick-off meeting: Walk through the seven question areas above together. Align on who "owns" which questions.
3. Define deliverables: Agree on key outputs: e.g., a compliance roadmap, documented controls, archiving policy, vendor-risk review plan.
4. Set cadence: Compliance isn't "once and done." Choose quarterly or semi-annual reviews of controls, documentation and external risks.
5. Report and refine: After your first meeting, ask your IT partner to deliver a summary with action items, timeline, metric of progress.
6. Audit readiness: As you approach any regulatory audit or exam (SEC, FINRA, state regulators), run a mock-review with your IT partner to stress-test your environment.

Why partnering with a compliance-aware IT firm matters

When you choose an IT partner that understands financial-services regulation, you gain more than just reactive support:

• Faster incident response: For example, JNT TEK advertises a 3.5-minute average response time.
• Industry-specific compliance experience: Firms focused on generic SMBs often miss financial-services nuances. JNT TEK works with private equity, investment banking, advisory firms.
• Audit-ready infrastructure: Documentation, archiving, monitoring all built in.
• Strategic alignment: Your IT environment supports compliance as a business advantage, not just a checkbox.

At JNT TEK, we believe that compliance + IT isn't a liability it's a differentiator. By elevating the conversation, financial firms turn IT from a problem to a strategic asset.

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