MCO vs Smarsh and Global Relay: Communications Archive and Compliance Platform
What this comparison covers
MyComplianceOffice (MCO), Smarsh, and Global Relay all provide products for capturing, retaining, and supervising employee communications. MCO offers eComms Keep for archiving and eComms Review for surveillance, as well as a broader compliance platform. Smarsh and Global Relay focus on communications capture, archiving, surveillance, and discovery. A communications-only purchase can include MCO: the comparison should turn on the required channels, review controls, implementation, and commercial scope, rather than platform breadth alone.
MCO's Keep and Review product pages describe adopting either solution or both. An eComms evaluation can therefore focus on communications requirements while existing personal-trading, disclosure, or other employee-compliance tools remain outside the purchase. Confirm the modules, dependencies, minimum commitments, and services included in the written proposal.
Platform scope
MCO
MCO runs 30+ products on a single shared platform. Communications archive (eComms Archive) and communications review (eComms Review) sit inside the Know Your Employee (KYE®) suite, alongside Personal Trading Compliance, Crypto Trading Compliance, Gifts, Entertainment and Hospitality, Political Contributions and Donations, Outside Business Activities, Registrations and Licensing, Connected Persons and Relationships, Roles and Responsibilities Needs. Beyond KYE, the platform covers Know Your Transactions (KYT®), Know Your Third Party (KYTP®), and Know Your Obligations (KYO®).
Smarsh
Smarsh positions around the tagline "Your tomorrow, secured by AI." The platform includes four components: Capture, Archive, Surveillance, and Discovery, plus expert Services. Channels supported include IM & Collaboration, Email, Mobile, Social, Web, Voice, and additional channels through a unified capture system (source).
Global Relay
Global Relay positions around "Compliance without compromise." The portfolio includes App ("compliant messaging, on any channel"), Connectors ("any data, anywhere"), Archive ("AI-powered, cloud archive"), Surveillance ("proactive supervision and risk management"), and eDiscovery (source).
Area-by-area overlap
| Capability | MCO | Smarsh | Global Relay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Communications archive | Yes (eComms Archive) | Yes (Archive) | Yes (Archive, AI-powered cloud) |
| Supervisory review | Yes (eComms Review) | Yes (Surveillance) | Yes (Surveillance with AI-assisted data classification) |
| Mobile messaging (SMS, WhatsApp) | Yes (with partnerships) | Yes | Yes |
| Voice archiving | Partial | Yes | Yes (with transcription and translation) |
| eDiscovery | Partial | Yes (Discovery) | Yes (specialist eDiscovery) |
| Personal trading | Yes | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Gifts and entertainment | Yes | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Outside business activities | Yes | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Attestations and code of ethics | Yes | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Trade surveillance | Yes (KYT) | Partial | Not a primary focus |
| Insider / MNPI management | Yes | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Third-party risk management | Yes (KYTP) | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
| Regulatory change and policy governance | Yes (KYO) | Not a primary focus | Not a primary focus |
Customer scale and evidence
MCO
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30+ products on one shared platform
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RegTech Insight Awards Europe 2025 and Deloitte's Best Managed Companies Ireland 2025
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G2 designations: Highest User Adoption, Best Meets Requirements (Mid-Market), Users Love Us, Governance, Risk & Compliance Leader
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Offices in New York, Fort Worth, Chicago, Dublin, London, Singapore, Hyderabad, and Dubai
Smarsh
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"Trusted by 18 out of 20 of the largest financial institutions worldwide"
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Over 6,500 customers globally (source)
Global Relay
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20,000+ customers worldwide
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22 of the top 25 global banks
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850+ data productions each month
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24/7/365 live support (source)
Security certifications
MCO
SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, EU-US Privacy Shield Data Protection Certification with TRUSTe, encryption in transit and at rest
Smarsh
References "industry-leading encryption both in transit and at rest, meeting the most stringent global security and compliance regulations" without listing specific named certifications in the homepage content fetched for this research.
Global Relay
ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (source)
MCO for a communications-only purchase
MCO's communications products address requirements beyond adding employee-compliance context:
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Archive, retain, and investigate messages. Keep documents channel coverage including email, Microsoft Teams, Bloomberg, and mobile messaging. Its capabilities include retention settings, cross-channel search, threaded and deduplicated messages, case collections, legal holds, and exports.
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Prioritize and supervise communications. Review documents policy-based risk scoring, configurable lexicons and workflows, a unified review inbox, and recorded review decisions and escalations.
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Administer the communications workflow. MCO describes self-service configuration and archive access. Its Keep page states that exports do not incur export fees. Confirm the applicable scope and terms in the proposal.
These are reasons to evaluate MCO for archiving or surveillance even when personal trading and disclosures are outside the purchase. Broader employee-compliance integration adds value when needed, but should not substitute for demonstrating the eComms requirements themselves. Sources: Keep capabilities and Review capabilities.
Comparing specific requirements with Smarsh and Global Relay
Smarsh and Global Relay remain relevant alternatives where their documented capabilities fit the required deployment. Compare each product against the same requirements:
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Capture coverage and fidelity. Validate every required source and the message types, attachments, edits, deletions, and metadata that must be retained. A channel name alone does not establish complete capture.
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Voice and specialist discovery. The table above retains MCO's partial coverage designation for voice archiving and specialist eDiscovery. Where native voice capture, transcription, translation, or a specific discovery workflow is essential, require a demonstration of that exact capability. MCO's documented search, cases, legal holds, and exports should still be included in the comparison.
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Supervisory controls. Test the required reviewer permissions, entity separation, assignments, escalation, and decision history in the proposed communications package.
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Retention and migration. Confirm retention periods, legal-hold continuity, historical imports, and reconciliation for the actual deployment.
Communications being the primary requirement, or another employee-compliance platform already being in place, does not by itself establish a preference for Smarsh or Global Relay. The relevant distinction is whether each proposed package meets the specific communications requirements.
Comparing total cost for the same scope
Request equivalent, itemized proposals covering the same monitored population, channels, retention periods, and review requirements. Include licensing and module minimums, connectors, implementation and migration, storage, support, review and administration effort, and export or termination charges.
MCO's stated self-service access and export terms are concrete inputs to that comparison. They do not alone establish a lower total cost for every deployment. Savings from replacing employee-compliance tools belong in the calculation only when those tools are actually part of the proposed replacement.
Broader compliance and coexistence
If the purchase also includes personal trading, disclosures, conflicts, or other compliance workflows, MCO's shared platform provides an additional reason to evaluate it. Confirm which cross-module workflows and data connections the proposal includes.
If an existing communications archive will remain, assess the supported integration, data transfer, retention responsibilities, and any duplicate licensing before proposing a combined deployment. Coexistence is an option to validate, not a requirement for using MCO eComms.