Can a Customer Portal Be a Durable Medium?

Yes, a customer portal can be a durable medium

The FCA’s position is more nuanced than saying that websites are or are not durable media.

Its durable-medium guidance says the criteria can be met by an interactive secure website.

For that website to constitute a durable medium, the FCA says the information must:

• be addressed personally to the customer
• remain accessible in future through the secure login
• allow unchanged reproduction of information from previous periods

So an appropriately designed customer portal can qualify.

The practical issue is what follows from relying on the portal for that job.

A portal has to preserve the past, not only show the present

Most customer portals are primarily live service environments.

They are useful for things such as:

• current account information
• transactions
• messages and tasks
• live valuations
• servicing requests
• profile management
• interactive reporting

Those are dynamic functions.

Durable-medium information has a different characteristic: the customer may need to return to exactly what was provided at an earlier point in time.

That means a portal being used as a durable medium needs to distinguish between:

• information that changes as the account changes
• settled information previously supplied to the customer

The FCA uses online banking statements as an example. It is not enough merely to show the current position. Previous information must remain capable of being reproduced unchanged.

What does that mean in practice?

If a firm relies on its customer portal as the durable medium, it should consider questions such as:

How are historic versions preserved?

If terms, disclosures or documents change, can the customer still retrieve the version originally supplied to them?

How long does access continue?

The FCA definition requires access for a period adequate for the purposes of the information.

Different documents may therefore create different retention and accessibility considerations.

What happens when the customer leaves?

A live portal is often designed around an active commercial relationship.

But the customer may still need statements, agreements, notices or tax records after the account is closed.

If portal access ends with the relationship, the firm needs to consider how required information remains available.

What happens when the portal is replaced?

Portal technology changes.

Platforms are redesigned, migrated or retired.

If the portal is also the customer’s long-term document record, historic information and unchanged reproduction have to survive those changes.

Who can alter or delete settled information?

A system used for live customer servicing may allow staff or automated processes to update information.

The durable-medium implementation needs to preserve the information that was actually provided.

Does a portal have to be a durable medium?

Not always.

Some FCA rules distinguish between information provided:

• in a durable medium, and
• through a website that does not itself constitute a durable medium, where separate website conditions are satisfied

For example, parts of the FCA Handbook expressly allow information to be provided in a durable medium or through a website that meets the applicable website conditions.

The regulatory analysis therefore starts with the specific rule.

A firm should not assume that every customer webpage must become a permanent archive simply because regulated information appears somewhere within the portal.

The architectural question

This leads to a useful design choice.

Should the same platform be responsible for both:

1. running the customer’s active account
2. preserving the customer’s important point-in-time documents?

It can be.

But it does not have to be.

Separating the two can simplify the role of the operational portal.

The portal can remain focused on live information, transactions and interaction, while important documents are delivered separately into an environment designed for long-term access.

The account-closure problem

This distinction becomes particularly clear when a customer leaves.

The business may quite reasonably want to close access to the operational account.

But the customer may still need historic documents.

Keeping the full servicing portal alive simply so a former customer can retrieve old documents can create unnecessary authentication, support, security and migration obligations.

A separate document-delivery layer allows the active relationship to end while previously delivered records remain accessible.

See how customers can keep important documents after an account closes.

Where Documentd fits

Documentd does not require a business to replace its customer portal.

The portal can continue doing the jobs it already does well.

Documentd is added for the important point-in-time documents the customer should receive and keep.

That gives the firm a simple division of responsibility:

Use the portal for live service. Use Documentd for the documents the customer needs to keep.

Documents delivered through Documentd remain in the customer’s own Keepd document space rather than depending on continued access to the sender’s operational portal.

See Documentd’s durable-medium approach for the commercial model.

The key point

A customer portal can be a durable medium.

The real question for many firms is not can we make the portal do it?

It is:

Do we want the live customer portal to carry the long-term responsibility for historic document access, unchanged reproduction and former-customer retrieval?