- What can you tell us about your company and your products & services?
Shield (www.shieldfc.com) was founded in 2018 by its founders with the aim of building the ultimate RegTech (Regulatory Technology) solution. A number of companies focus on Anti Money Laundering or regulatory reporting; however, Shield focuses on surveillance, specifically on detailed eComms surveillance, which is vital for financial firms looking to adhere to and prove they have adequately covered regulatory compliance.
Our revolutionary cross-regulation financial compliance platform provides a complete view on eComms, trade and market data utilizing AI, Natural Language Processing and Visualization capabilities to make compliance more efficient and ROI driven.
We capture data by connecting all structured and unstructured data sources, record-keeping and archiving platforms across all eComms channels. We then correlate the eComms trade and market data to deliver a sequential view of trading events. This enables a compliance team to reconstruct, report and interact with trade eComms timelines via an intuitive user interface.
- How you came up with the idea and what drives you?
Shield’s journey began with a seemingly unsolvable customer challenge to find a communications compliance platform that consolidates all sources in one place. We couldn’t find any suitable solutions on the market, so the Co-Founders (CEO Shiran Weitzman and CTO Ofir Shabtai) set up Shield Financial Compliance in 2018 to build a much-needed technology to ‘fill the gap’
We have always firmly believed that the RegTech sphere needs to look towards future needs, closely studying the regulations and the challenges these are posing, anticipating what the market will require and ensuring the right solution is in place just when it is needed. This was our motivation when it came to launching Shield.
This seems to be the common-sense approach, but when we established the business it was a surprisingly different strategy to the bigger, more established vendors who kept addressing the challenges with the same linear approach. We were the ’outsiders’ trying to do things differently – a tough challenge in a very traditional RegTech industry.
From day one Shield has been about delivering the best RegTech solution, one which meets all the needs of the firm but also protects its customers. Larger providers often lack the flexibility and adaptability that we are proud to demonstrate.
Our technology platform already encompasses a wide selection of financial regulations, but ultimately, we want to ensure it covers regulations globally, offering customers worldwide the ultimate RegTech solution for all their potential needs.
- What is it that makes your company different from others?
Shield is comprised of unique individuals, all subject matter experts in their field. From surveillance experts to data scientists, programmers and business experts. This unique team, spread out across the globe is what got us to top tier banks even when we were less than 20 people.
- Where are you based?
Shield recently moved to its new larger Headquarters at Mindspace, in Tel Aviv, Israel. The new facility houses Shield’s key business elements including the R&D team and Subject Matter Experts team, along with the Sales and Marketing divisions.
Shield also has an office in London which enables the company to have a close presence to its customers in The City and across the capital, and an office in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- When was the company launched?
Shield was launched in early 2018 by Co-Founders Shiran Weitzman (CEO) and Ofir Shabtai (CTO).
- What traction have you made? Can you tell us about your biggest achievements so far?
Shield’s solutions are already protecting the whole spectrum of financial firms, from SMEs up to top tier banks. For example, a multi-billion European financial services group serving over 11 million private customers, is using the platform to bolster company-wide compliance and address Market Abuse (MAR) requirements. Shield ensures all compliance related data is collected, normalized, tagged and indexed for searchability, and placed in an eDiscovery format with investigation capabilities.
A spokesperson for the firm stated, “We now have access to all trading communications data (algorithmic, electronic and voice trading) through one secure, tamper-proof location. This enables our firm to automate all record-keeping and task monitoring, as well as performing cutting-edge text and voice analytics to gain further compliance insights. The Shield solution provides a far more strategic approach to managing compliance data across the board, whilst saving the organisation time and money.”
Shield has also released several product developments over the last 12 months. It was one of the first compliance platforms to features integration with Microsoft Teams, providing full surveillance as well as record and search of Microsoft Teams interactions. This enables extraction, review and analysis of specific conversations to assist with any investigation process.
Other enhancements have included a powerful AI technology that intelligently and automatically reduces false positives (a major issue for compliance teams) and the company’s proprietary Financial Context Recognition (FCR) technology. Using an AI-powered engine, FCR understands the varied and complicated idiosyncrasies of language (including slang, regional dialects and jargon etc.), enabling it to extract the financial context of recorded eComms conversations, allowing compliance officers to accurately pair it to all relevant trade data.
- What advice could you give to other entrepreneurs and start-ups?
When it comes to selling a product, you need to develop the best solution for the market. Your product must be the best possible solution for your customers, answering specific and important needs and meeting all the criteria (price, suitability, ease of use etc.) which will ensure you dominate the market.
Once you achieve these crucial elements, you can build a successful business structure around an innovative and relevant product.
- What can you tell us about your team?
As of January 2020, Shield has 30 team members. The youngest is 24, the oldest is 54. We have over 20 next-gen Shielders that will build Shield 2.0 that monitors holograms and VR trading
- What’s next for your company?
Shield is currently embarking on its Series A Round of funding. The company was initially established and funded by its founders, with its continued success driven by technical and professional excellence, along with a clear goal of delivering the best RegTech platform.
However, as of early 2020, Shield is looking for further funding to reach its full potential, to continue building its team of professionals and to fully tap the potential of the RegTech market – which is continuing to expand as data usage grows exponentially and financial regulations become even more complex.
This additional financial backing will enable Shield to stay ahead of the curve, to continue developing the best solutions and to play in a key part in protecting financial institutions, their customers and the trust between them.
- How do potential customers and investors get in touch with you?
Go to www.shieldfc.com and contact us
“The Business Spotlight on…” is the section at PlanetCompliance that looks at the companies active in the sectors we cover, tells their stories and introduces the solutions to give them a platform to show what they’ve got and who they are. If you want to know more about how you can get featured in this section, contact us at launch@planetcompliance.com or on Twitter at @PlanetComplianc