In financial services, a phone call can be advice, an instruction or a complaint, and each may need a record. Blake Telecom has been providing business phone systems for financial services since 2004, with recording built around FCA rules and apps that follow advisers anywhere.
Clients rarely ring a financial firm about something trivial. They are moving a pension, chasing a mortgage offer, questioning a charge or worried about markets, and they want to speak to someone who knows their situation.
If that call bounces around the office, sits in a queue with no explanation or reaches the wrong person, confidence slips quickly. In a sector built on trust, that matters.
Our cloud phone systems put clients through to their own adviser or team first time. They record the conversations your rules require and keep every call on the firm’s number, even when advisers work from home.
An independent adviser, a mortgage broker and an insurance intermediary run very different businesses. On the phone, though, they face the same three pressures, and most general business phone systems handle none of them particularly well.
Advice, orders and agreed actions often happen by phone. Depending on your permissions, FCA rules may require those calls to be recorded and kept, whichever device the adviser uses.
Calls can include income, health, account and family details. Access to recordings and call records should be limited to the people who genuinely need it.
Tax year end, product deadlines and interest rate announcements all bring waves of calls. Queues, announcements and overflow routing stop clients being left to ring out.
Firms carrying out certain investment activities must record relevant telephone conversations under the FCA’s rules in SYSC 10A.1, which implement MiFID II. Records must be kept for five years, or up to seven where the FCA asks.
Even where recording is not mandatory, mortgage, protection and insurance firms often record calls to evidence suitability, handle complaints fairly and show good outcomes under the Consumer Duty.
With our VoIP call recording, each call is held in 30 days warm storage, extendable to 180 days, with cold storage up to 10 years, comfortably covering FCA retention periods.
Please note: Your permissions decide which calls must be recorded. Please confirm the position with your compliance officer and the FCA Handbook. Tell clients that calls are recorded, and follow ICO guidance on handling the recordings.
It depends on your permissions. This is a general guide to talk through with your compliance officer.
Firms carrying out investment activities covered by SYSC 10A.1, such as dealing or arranging deals in financial instruments, must record relevant calls.
Recording is not usually mandatory, but many firms keep calls to evidence suitability and resolve complaints fairly.
Recording is often the firm’s own choice, used to show fair treatment under the Consumer Duty and to settle disputes.
Calls on personal mobiles are a common gap. Where SYSC 10A.1 applies, firms must take all reasonable steps to prevent relevant calls on devices they cannot record. Many give advisers business mobiles or ask them to use the business number through our mobile app.
Plans start from £8.99 a month per user, and you only pay for compliant call recording on the advisers and teams who need it. Moving your existing numbers across is free.
Your total depends on how many advisers and support staff you have, how long recordings must be kept and the connection at each office. Typical options are on our pricing page, and we can talk your compliance lead through them.
Pick the tools that match your permissions and the way your advisers work, from compliant recording on every device to client records that open as the phone rings.
Record inbound and outbound calls automatically, with retention periods set to match your regulatory obligations.
Calls made through the mobile app are recorded too, which keeps advisers working away from the office covered.
Play a short message before connecting so that every caller knows the conversation is being recorded.
Decide who can search, play and download recordings, keeping sensitive client calls away from unauthorised staff.
Link calls with your CRM or back office system, where supported, letting the adviser see who is calling before answering.
Make and receive client calls inside Microsoft Teams if your firm already works there every day.
Turn suitable calls into AI-generated call summaries of points discussed and actions agreed, ready to check and add to the client file.
Tell clients where they are in the queue during busy periods instead of leaving the phone to ring out.
We switch on what your firm needs now and add more as your client base, team or permissions change.
Every advice call leaves a trail of work: a file note to write, a recording to keep, a next step to diarise. Done by hand, it eats into the time advisers should spend with clients.
CRM integration and AI-generated summaries shorten that trail, while your compliance team keeps full control of what is stored and who sees it.
The call reaches the adviser’s direct dial or their team, in the office or on the app.
Relevant calls are recorded from the first word, with no button for anyone to forget.
Where your CRM supports it, the client’s details appear before the adviser answers.
An AI-generated summary lists points discussed and agreed actions for the adviser to check.
For illustration purposes only. Screens are examples and do not show real systems or data.
Smaller advice firms rarely need a full contact centre. Larger brokers, lenders and insurers often do, and moving to one should not mean changing your numbers, apps or recording setup.
UCaaS, or unified communications as a service, combines calling, video meetings, messaging and presence in a single cloud communications service. It suits advisers and paraplanners who split their week between the office, client homes and remote working.
CCaaS adds call queues, routing by skill and real-time reporting for firms that handle high volumes of client calls. It helps service, claims and new business teams keep answer times under control.
Before anything is switched on, we sit down with your compliance lead and your advisers. The right setup depends on your permissions as much as your team size.
We note which teams and conversations fall under recording rules. That way, nothing is recorded unnecessarily and nothing required is missed.
Office, home or client visits: we plan desk phones, apps and headsets so advisers stay reachable and recorded wherever they are.
Illustration only. The business, callers, numbers and times are examples, not a live system.
We set how long recordings are kept and who can hear them, matching your compliance policy rather than a default.
New advisers, offices or permissions can be added easily, and recordings stay searchable when auditors or clients ask.
The result is a phone system your advisers find easy to use and your compliance team can stand behind.
Since 2004 we have supplied business telecoms to UK financial firms, keeping them recorded, routed and answered, from sole advisers to busy lending teams. We support firms in Birmingham, Aberdeen, Belfast, Bangor, Barrow-in-Furness, Chesterfield and Bradford.
Law firms and accountants carry similar record-keeping duties, so you may also find our pages on VoIP for law firms, VoIP for accountants and professional services useful.
Talk to Us About Your Firm
A phone system change in a regulated firm has to be planned carefully. Recordings must carry on without a gap, and clients should never notice the switch.
We will recommend the least disruptive route: SIP trunking for equipment that still works well, or a hosted phone system on a hosted PBX or cloud PBX run from secure data centres, moving one office at a time.
That supports business continuity, disaster recovery and hybrid working. If a site loses its connection, calls can divert to another office or to adviser mobiles, which supports the FCA’s operational resilience expectations.
Smaller branches
FTTC and SoGEA suit smaller branches and home-based advisers, giving clear calls and steady access to your cloud platforms.
See FTTC and SoGEA broadbandAdvice offices
Full fibre gives advice offices the capacity for recorded calls, client video meetings and cloud platforms at the same time.
Explore fibre broadbandDedicated and uncontended
A dedicated, uncontended line suits contact centres and larger firms where every minute of downtime affects clients.
Find out about leased linesOne supplier for your phone system and your business broadband means one number to call if something goes wrong, with no finger-pointing between providers.
Regulated firms look for independent evidence. Our platform has collected two Gold awards in 2026 and Leader status in the 2025 GigaOm Radar, and Corporate Vision has named Blake Telecom in its own awards.
Customer Service Team of the Year
Awarded at the 24th American Business Awards in April 2026. Gold for Achievement in Management, two Silvers and a Bronze came from the same event.
Product UX
Gold in April 2026 for the platform’s mobile workspace, which gathers calls, video and team chat on one screen.
Contact Centre as a Service
The 2025 GigaOm Radar for CCaaS placed it among the Leaders and Fast Movers, weighing contact centre platforms on capability and how quickly each develops.
These awards were earned by the platform we supply, and verified reviews from its users can be read on Gartner Peer Insights.
Compliance teams ask where data is held, how calls are recorded and how card details are protected. These are the answers for each.
Certified Platform. The platform carries ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and SOC 2 certification as well as Cyber Essentials, and handles personal data in line with UK GDPR.
Secure Card Payments. Premiums paid by phone are taken through PCI DSS compliant capture, so neither advisers nor recordings hold the card details.
Recording and Retention. Your compliance team picks which advisers and teams are recorded with VoIP call recording. Each call is held in 30 days warm storage, extendable to 180 days, with cold storage up to 10 years.
UK Data Residency. Client data is held in UK data centres, and remote advice meetings are encrypted end to end.
Our work in business communications began in 2004. Advice firms deal with one UK-based team that plans the move, tests the system beforehand and supports every office after go live.
Blake Telecom have been supplying our business communications for well over 10 years. We have found both their systems and support to be fully robust, and they have given an excellent service throughout, with value for money for their products. Their approach to helping our business has always been excellent from every aspect and I would highly recommend their services.
Blake Telecom have been paramount to the growth of our business by continuing to offer our business the very highest level of service. The equipment we have been supplied has been extremely flexible, allowing us to adapt as our needs change. Blake Telecom’s knowledge and expertise have been very professional, and we look forward to working together on our future projects.
Blake Telecom have revolutionised the way we operate. They have gone the extra mile in making the setup process painless, and it was easy to install. Any questions are dealt with quickly and efficiently, and the staff are a pleasure to deal with. I truly wish we had found them years ago. We recommend Blake Telecom to many of our suppliers and even customers whenever we can.
When we moved to rural office space, without the benefit of reasonable broadband speed or any telephony services in place, Blake Telecom directed us to alternatives, and the solution we have is excellent. 4G Wi-Fi VoIP serves our current needs and situation perfectly. The team were succinct in their explanation of what we could achieve, providing something promptly and getting this set up with minimum fuss and delay.
It depends on your permissions. Firms carrying out investment activities covered by SYSC 10A.1, such as dealing or arranging deals in financial instruments, must record relevant calls. Many other advisers record anyway to evidence suitability and handle complaints.
Recordings covered by SYSC 10A.1 must be kept for five years, and up to seven where the FCA requests it. Our cold storage keeps recordings for up to 10 years.
An internet phone system sends calls over your broadband instead of old telephone lines. For advisers, that means the business number works on a desk phone, a laptop or the mobile app, with call recording applied in the same way.
MiFID II introduced the recording rules that the FCA applies through SYSC 10A.1. They cover conversations intended to result in transactions, even when no transaction follows, including calls on mobile devices used for that work.
Yes. Calls made and received through our mobile app on the business number can be recorded like desk phone calls, which keeps advisers who work remotely covered. Calls on a personal mobile outside the app are not recorded, so we help firms move advisers onto the business number.
Yes, callers should be told. A short recording announcement plays before the call connects, and the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) Regulations 2000 expect businesses to make reasonable efforts to inform callers. ICO guidance covers how recordings are stored and used. Your compliance officer can confirm the wording your firm needs.
SYSC 10A.1 also covers electronic communications about relevant activities, such as emails and messages. Our call recording covers voice calls, so your compliance officer should confirm how other channels are kept and searchable.
You decide. Access can be set so compliance staff hear everything, team leaders hear their own team and advisers hear only their own calls.
Each recording is held in warm storage for 30 days as standard. You can extend that to 180 days, and cold storage packages run for up to 10 years.
Integration is available with many widely used CRM platforms, bringing up client details as calls arrive. Let us know your system and we will check the integration options with you first.
In most cases, yes. Existing business phone numbers can usually be transferred, and we plan the move so recording carries on without a gap.
Calls can divert to advisers’ mobiles or another office agreed in advance. Calls made through the app are still recorded, and client service carries on.
Costs depend on user numbers, the recording and retention you need and your connection. You can compare options on our VoIP pricing page or ask for a quote for your firm.
Tell us how advisers, brokers and client teams take calls today, and what your compliance team needs from recordings. We will show you what would suit your firm and how the move would work, with a clear quote to match.
Once you say go, we plan the set-up, move your numbers at quiet times and train your advisers, with one UK-based team looking after you afterwards.
Our team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm.
Reviewed by Aaron Barrowman, Engineer at Blake Telecom, on 22/10/2026.
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