Designing a Compliant Chat & Screen-Sharing Experience

Enterprise Design

Role

UX/UI Designer

Industry

Banking

Duration

6 months

Executive Summary

🔹 The Business Problem: Pershing needed to integrate a secure, compliant chat and screen-sharing solution for financial advisors while ensuring regulatory compliance with SEC & FINRA regulations. Existing solutions did not meet industry-specific security and retention requirements.

🔹 My Role: I led the UX strategy and design for a micro frontend solution that ensured compliance before chat data was transferred to Unblu, balancing usability, compliance, and cost constraints. This required cross-functional collaboration with business, engineering, legal, and sales teams.

🔹 The Impact: The solution enabled customized compliance settings for different IBDs, improved advisor adoption through UX research and sales materials, and ensured Pershing maintained regulatory control over critical chat records.

Project Overview

This project focused on integrating a secure, compliant chat and screen-sharing solution into Pershing’s advisor platform. Rather than simply implementing a third-party tool, the challenge was ensuring regulatory compliance, customization for different IBD business models, and a seamless user experience.

Key Focus Areas:

✔️ UX strategy for compliance-driven communication tools
✔️ Designing a scalable micro frontend for data retention
✔️ Balancing customization, cost, and business constraints
✔️ Creating an intuitive advisor-client chat experience
✔️ Ensuring FINRA & SEC compliance while maintaining usability
✔️ Developing research-backed solutions informed by advisor needs
✔️ Supporting sales & adoption through stakeholder education
✔️ Cross-functional collaboration with business, legal, engineering, and content teams

Executive Summary

Project Overview

Key Focus Areas:

The Problem: Compliance, Usability & Sales Enablement Conflicts

Pershing needed a way to enable chat and screen-sharing for financial advisors while ensuring compliance with SEC & FINRA regulations. However, existing solutions were not designed for the strict record retention and security requirements in financial services. Additionally, advisors needed clarity on the tool’s benefits, requiring UX research and targeted communication strategies.

Challenges:

Data Retention Regulations – SEC 17a-4 mandates that communications be stored in a tamper-proof, non-editable format for 3–6 years.
Custom Needs for IBDs – Some firms required full chat logs for compliance, while others wanted chats deleted after each session to reduce liability.
Advisor & Call Center Variability – Call centers needed queue-based routing, while advisors needed client-specific chat options.
Technical Constraints – The third-party solution (Unblu) was not designed for storing external records, requiring Pershing to build its own compliance layer.
Sales & Adoption – Many advisors didn’t fully understand how chat and screen-sharing could fit into their workflows, creating a barrier to adoption.

Stakeholder Concerns

Dynamics that shaped the project

“Firms need ownership over chat retention, but Pershing has liability if we don’t store records properly.”

Legal

Defined SEC & FINRA retention requirements, ensuring chat records were stored securely.

“Unblu doesn’t store agreements, so Pershing must handle them. That means we need a compliant data handoff.”

Engineering

Developed the micro frontend for regulatory compliance and integrated with Unblu’s chat system.

“Some firms have call centers, some have individual advisors. The system needs to account for both—one needs a queue, the other needs personalized scheduling.”

Business

Evaluated customization needs vs. cost constraints, determining which firms would receive advanced features.

"Each firm needs an individual solution based on their business model."

UX + Research

Conducted advisor research to refine UI and ensure an intuitive experience. Created multiple iterations to help stakeholders articulate the feature and create value for business and clients.

“I’m not sure when I’d use this—does this replace emails? What’s the difference between this and calling my clients?”

Advisor

Worked with business and UX to give feedback on design and business needs.

“We need clearer messaging to help firms understand what they’re getting and how this fits into their existing advisor workflows.”

Sales

Made the case to clients that this would improve their business. Supported adoption and onboarded clients.

Stakeholder Concerns

Dynamics that shaped the project

“Firms need ownership over chat retention, but Pershing has liability if we don’t store records properly.”

Legal

Defined SEC & FINRA retention requirements, ensuring chat records were stored securely.

“Unblu doesn’t store agreements, so Pershing must handle them. That means we need a compliant data handoff.”

Engineering

Developed the micro frontend for regulatory compliance and integrated with Unblu’s chat system.

“Some firms have call centers, some have individual advisors. The system needs to account for both—one needs a queue, the other needs personalized scheduling.”

Business

Evaluated customization needs vs. cost constraints, determining which firms would receive advanced features.

"Each firm needs an individual solution based on their business model."

Advisors

Conducted advisor research to refine UI and ensure an intuitive experience. Created multiple iterations to help stakeholders articulate the feature and create value for business and clients.

Stakeholder Concerns

Dynamics that shaped the project

“Firms need ownership over chat retention, but Pershing has liability if we don’t store records properly.”

Legal

Defined SEC & FINRA retention requirements, ensuring chat records were stored securely.

“Unblu doesn’t store agreements, so Pershing must handle them. That means we need a compliant data handoff.”

Engineering

Developed the micro frontend for regulatory compliance and integrated with Unblu’s chat system.

“Some firms have call centers, some have individual advisors. The system needs to account for both—one needs a queue, the other needs personalized scheduling.”

Business

Evaluated customization needs vs. cost constraints, determining which firms would receive advanced features.

"Each firm needs an individual solution based on their business model."

UX

Conducted advisor research to refine UI and ensure an intuitive experience. Created multiple iterations to help stakeholders articulate the feature and create value for business and clients.

“I’m not sure when I’d use this—does this replace emails? What’s the difference between this and calling my clients?”

Advisors

Worked with business and UX to give feedback on design and business needs.

“We need clearer messaging to help firms understand what they’re getting and how this fits into their existing advisor workflows.”

Sales

Made the case to clients that this would improve their business. Supported adoption and onboarded clients.

The UX was designed to allow each firm to configure chat & co-browsing settings based on their business model, while ensuring advisors understood how to use the tool effectively through interactive training materials and onboarding guides.

Feature Prioritization by IBD Model

IBD Model	Core Features (Standard)	Customizable Features
Call Center Firms	✅ Queue-Based Chat	🔹 Compliance Retention Settings
Advisor-Led Firms	✅ Direct Chat & Scheduling	🔹 Video, AI, Document Collaboration

Final Impact: Secure, Scalable, and User-Centric

🚀 Micro Frontend Ownership – Pershing retained critical compliance data while seamlessly integrating with Unblu.
🔒 Security & Compliance First – Ensured all chat interactions met SEC & FINRA regulations.
🔄 User-Centric Customization – Allowed each firm to tailor the experience to their specific needs while balancing cost constraints.
📢 Advisor Compliance Support – Embedded pre-approved messaging & disclaimers to mitigate risk.
📈 Sales Enablement Success – Developed training materials & UX research insights that drove adoption among advisors.

Final Impact: Secure, Scalable, and User-Centric

Takeaways & Reflections

✔️ Enterprise UX Requires Balancing Compliance & Usability – UX must be designed to mitigate risk while enabling user efficiency.
✔️ Collaboration is Critical – Success required early engagement with engineering, compliance, content, business, and sales teams.
✔️ Micro Frontends Improve Scalability – This project reinforced the value of modular, adaptable architecture in enterprise UX.
✔️ Cost vs. Customization Must Be Considered – IBDs had different budgets and feature prioritization had to align with business impact.
✔️ Sales & Adoption Matter – Even the best UX needs clear messaging and training to succeed in a complex enterprise setting.