Personally addressed
The information is provided to the individual recipient.
Regulated customer communications
A simpler way to deliver documents on a durable medium
Give customers lasting access to the important documents you send them, without rebuilding your customer portal or relying on email attachments.
Documentd adds a dedicated document-delivery layer to the communications you already use.
Works alongside your existing email, portal and business systems.
Find your route
How are you delivering important documents today?
Start with the method you already use. Documentd can work alongside it rather than forcing you to replace the rest of your customer experience.
Customer portal
Keep the portal for active service
Separate permanent document delivery from the live portal and its long-term access obligations.
Email
Keep the email. Improve what happens afterwards.
Use email for communication while giving important documents a dedicated long-term home.
Paper & post
Keep the permanence. Lose the print and postage.
Where electronic delivery is appropriate, remove the physical fulfilment chain without losing the customer copy.
Not sure how your current approach stacks up?
Take the 2-minute Durable Medium Assessment
Work through 10 practical questions and identify the areas worth reviewing against the rule that applies to your communication.
The regulatory principle
What does the FCA mean by “durable medium”?
The FCA defines a durable medium by what it allows the recipient to do with the information they receive. In broad terms, the information must be personally addressed, capable of being stored for future reference, and capable of unchanged reproduction.
Available for future reference
The recipient can store and access it for an appropriate period.
Reproducible unchanged
The information can later be reproduced in the same form in which it was provided.
The underlying idea
The FCA explains the purpose particularly clearly: information should be “placed under the customer’s control”, rather than remain under the control of the provider.
Read the FCA guidance on durable mediumPurpose-built delivery
Documentd is built around those principles
Documentd delivers important documents into the customer's own Keepd document space.
Personally delivered
Each document is delivered to the intended recipient rather than simply being made generally available on a website.
Available when it is needed later
Customers retain access to documents that have been delivered to them, so they can return to them months or years later.
The document stays the document
A delivered document is not a live webpage whose content can subsequently change. The customer can return to the document that was originally delivered.
A document space for the customer
Documents are kept in the customer's Keepd account rather than existing only inside the sender's customer portal.
If you already use a portal
Your customer portal can stay exactly where it is
A secure customer portal can be a durable medium. The FCA explicitly recognises that an interactive website can qualify where the information is personally addressed, remains accessible in future and can be reproduced unchanged.
But that creates an important practical question:
Does your portal need to do this job?
If the portal itself is being relied upon as the durable medium, you need to consider how it handles historical documents, unchanged versions, retention and continuing access.
Documentd takes a different approach.
Keep your existing portal for servicing the customer. Use Documentd to deliver the documents they need to keep.
If you already use email
Email works too. But is it the best place for important documents?
The FCA also recognises that email can meet the definition of a durable medium when the relevant conditions are satisfied.
So the argument for Documentd isn't that email is inherently non-compliant.
It is that an email inbox was never designed to be a customer's long-term document home.
Important documents become mixed with ordinary messages. Attachments are downloaded, duplicated, lost or deleted. Customers can forget which email contained the document they need and contact you to ask for another copy.
Documentd works alongside the email you already send.
No rip-and-replace project
Keep your communications. Add the durable delivery layer.
Documentd does not need to replace the systems you already use.
Keep your email
Continue communicating with customers normally.
Keep your portal
Continue using it for account management, transactions and servicing.
Keep your workflows
Add Documentd to existing processes rather than creating another system your teams have to work around.
Connect when you need to
Use the Documentd API for automated or high-volume delivery.
Your existing systems communicate with the customer. Documentd delivers the documents they need to keep.
Flexible delivery
Four ways to deliver
Start simply and integrate more deeply only when you need to.
Send from the web
Upload documents, select the recipient and deliver them directly from Documentd.
Send from email
Keep using the email workflow your teams already know. Copy Documentd into the message to deliver the documents into Keepd as well.
Add Documentd to existing workflows
Document delivery can sit alongside the processes your organisation already uses.
Integrate through the API
Automate high-volume or system-generated document delivery directly from your applications.
Compare the approaches
A simpler alternative to rebuilding your portal
There are several ways to provide customer information electronically on a durable medium. Documentd separates document delivery from everything else.
| Email attachments | Customer portal | Documentd | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works with existing communications | Yes | Usually | Yes |
| Customer has a dedicated place for important documents | No | Yes | Yes |
| Documents separated from transactional portal | Yes | No | Yes |
| Designed for long-term document access | Depends on customer mailbox | Depends on portal design | Yes |
| Existing portal does not need redevelopment | Yes | Depends on existing design | Yes |
| API delivery | Depends on email system | Requires integration | Yes |
We deliberately do not reduce regulatory compliance to a single “yes/no” row. Whether a particular communication satisfies the applicable rules depends on the communication, the relevant requirement and the way the delivery process is configured.
The business case
Reduce the cost of delivering documents
Durable-medium requirements do not mean businesses have to return to paper. Electronic media can meet the FCA's criteria when the required characteristics are present.
Paper and post
Every communication carries printing, fulfilment and postage costs.
Portal redevelopment
Making document retention part of an existing portal can mean additional development, infrastructure, support and long-term maintenance.
Documentd
Add a purpose-built document-delivery service to the communications infrastructure you already have.
Beyond compliance
Better for the customer too
Regulatory requirements are only part of the reason for doing this.
Customers receive important documents from insurers, banks, lenders, pension providers, employers, utilities and other organisations throughout their lives.
Email gives them another attachment. A conventional portal gives them another place they have to remember to visit.
Documentd gives the document to the customer. Keepd gives them one place to keep it.
Important documents remain organised and available when they are actually needed, not just on the day they were sent.
A practical durable-medium approach
Add Documentd to the systems you already have
You don't need to replace your email system. You don't need to replace your customer portal. And you don't need to turn document delivery into a major transformation project.
Give customers lasting access to the documents you send them, while keeping your existing communications infrastructure in place.
No long-term commitment. Plans from £20 per month.
About regulatory requirements
Whether a particular communication satisfies a durable-medium requirement depends on the applicable rules, the information being provided and the way in which the communication is delivered.
Documentd is designed around the characteristics identified in the FCA's definition and guidance on durable media. Firms remain responsible for determining which regulatory requirements apply to their communications.
FCA Handbook definition of durable medium