Financial services firms have tended to be ahead of the curve when it comes to deploying new technology, because their businesses rely and benefit so much from it.

From online services to sophisticated fraud prevention systems and IP-enabled intelligent contact centres, financial services firms have tread a technology path that retailers have followed.

However, the latest trend that’s seeing retail mirror finance is perhaps not so positive – it’s about proving compliance.

Last weekend, news came out that the UK’s largest supermarkets have once again been asked to hand over e-mails and data to the Office of Fair Trading. This comes only days after the OFT announced a separate enquiry into cigarette price-fixing. Such demands for data highlight the part that systems play in the operation of retail businesses.

The authorities are taking an ever-greater interest in larger retailers and regulating their activity in the name of competition. For these companies, the creation and management of data and data trails becomes even more crucial.

Once, IT directors’ main worries were around building systems that met users’ needs and keeping those systems up and running. The compliance remit did not extend far beyond software licensing – at least until PCIDSS came along.

If this obsession with competition continues, retailers could soon find that they have much more in common with their financial services counterparts.

E-mail archiving procedures will need to be scrutinised if retailers are to protect their brands by being able to prove that incriminating e-mails never existed. In addition, more files may need to be encrypted and IT access rights will have to be rigorously policed.

The tracking of information flows in financial services firms goes much further than this already. The digital recording of phone calls is also commonplace. Let’s hope that this is one trend that retailers find they don’t have to follow.