Zantaz

    Industry Brief · Financial Services

    Financial Services

    Financial institutions are judged on the record. Smart Stack 3.0 helps banks, asset managers, and market participants govern, preserve, and prepare the information across Microsoft 365 and connected financial systems for supervision, investigations, and AI.

    Executive Summary

    What You Gain in the First 90 Days

    Preserving regulated communications is necessary but not sufficient. Customer material, risk documentation, contracts, research, and investigation files spread across SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Exchange, and Windows File Shares. Smart Stack 3.0 governs that estate and prepares approved Trusted Data for Microsoft analytics and AI.

    80%

    of the institution's estate is unstructured content that no system of record governs

    5 years

    minimum books and records retention the institution must prove across content IT does not fully see

    SEC Rule 204-2

    60%

    of unstructured content is redundant, obsolete, or trivial, and IT pays to store, secure, discover, and index all of it

    The Data Estate

    Where the Information Actually Lives

    Microsoft carries collaboration, communication, analytics, and AI for the institution. Regulated evidence and customer material also live in connected financial platforms and long-lived file environments.

    Microsoft 365 Core

    Exchange communications subject to supervision and retention

    SharePoint sites for business lines, risk, and control functions

    OneDrive accounts holding working analysis and client material

    Teams and Microsoft 365 Groups used for deals, incidents, and committees

    Purview labels, retention policies, and hold signals

    Power BI assets, datasets, and lineage

    Windows File Shares accumulated across decades and acquisitions

    Microsoft Fabric, OneLake, Copilot, and supported agent grounding sources

    Connected Financial Systems

    Trading, order management, and market data platforms

    Risk, treasury, and finance reporting systems

    Customer relationship and account origination platforms

    Loan, mortgage, and payments servicing environments

    Supervision and communications capture systems

    Legacy archives from prior vendors and acquired institutions

    The Cost of Doing Nothing

    What Ungoverned Data Costs You

    Institutions rarely lack data. They lack a defensible account of which information is subject to which obligation, who owns it, and whether it can be trusted.

    Regulated communications preserved while the surrounding record stays ungoverned

    Customer and account information sitting unclassified in collaboration and file environments

    Dormant sites, stale external access, and unclear ownership after reorganizations

    Incomplete retention and legal-hold coverage across unstructured content

    Repeated collection cost for every investigation, examination, and matter

    Fragmented archive contracts and storage spend on content with no continuing value

    The institution should not pay to store, migrate, secure, discover, index, embed, and process information that has no continuing value.

    The Smart Stack 3.0 Response

    One Connected Enterprise Platform

    Trusted Data Refinery

    Trusted Data Refinery analyzes SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Windows File Shares in place. It identifies sensitive customer and employee information, establishes ownership and policy context, isolates redundant and obsolete content, and creates higher-value Trusted Data for risk, legal, and analytics use.

    Trusted Data Archive

    Trusted Data Archive provides the defensible preservation foundation for regulated communications and records. It enforces retention and legal holds, maintains chain of custody, supports investigations and examinations, and reduces dependence on fragmented legacy archives.

    Trusted Data Lens

    Reveals permissions, external sharing, dormancy, label coverage, retention coverage, and hold signals across the supported Microsoft estate before broad processing begins.

    Trusted Data Collections

    Stages matter, examination, and customer-data sets with source, permissions, classification, policy, and provenance attached.

    Data Mirroring and Trusted Data Composer

    Prepares approved information for Fabric, OneLake, Power BI, Copilot, and agents with visible transformation logic and approval.

    The Complete Platform

    Smart Stack 3.0: One Expanding Enterprise Platform

    Smart Stack 3.0 brings executive performance visibility, trusted-data transformation, defensible preservation, controlled information access, and an expanding collection of purpose-built capabilities into one enterprise platform. The result is a connected operating model for improving performance, reducing information risk and cost, and preparing approved organizational data for Microsoft analytics and AI.

    Executive Performance Dashboard

    The Executive Performance Dashboard gives leadership a unified view of organizational performance, priorities, commitments, risks, and results. It replaces disconnected reporting with a measurable executive operating environment that helps leaders see what is happening, what should be happening, and where intervention is required.

    Trusted Data Suite

    The Trusted Data Suite transforms uncontrolled enterprise information into governed, higher-value, AI-ready Trusted Data. The Trusted Data Refinery discovers, analyzes, classifies, enriches, and improves rapidly growing unstructured data estates. The Trusted Data Archive securely preserves required information with retention enforcement, legal hold, chain of custody, journaling, defensible discovery, and long-term preservation. The Trusted Data Portal provides controlled access to policy-approved information for authorized people, Microsoft platforms, analytics environments, and AI systems.

    Trusted Toolkit

    The Trusted Toolkit is an expanding collection of purpose-built technologies for specific data, compliance, AI, and operational challenges. New capabilities increase the value of Smart Stack 3.0 without forcing the organization to procure a separate product, license, or user entitlement every time the platform expands.

    $1 Million Annual Unlimited Enterprise License

    One predictable annual license provides unlimited authorized organizational use and users across an expanding platform. The organization is not purchasing a static point solution or assembling a collection of separately priced tools. It is establishing an enterprise capability whose value increases as adoption expands, more information is governed, legacy cost is removed, risk is reduced, and new Smart Stack capabilities are introduced.

    Unlimited authorized users and organizational use

    Predictable enterprise-wide annual cost

    Expanding capabilities without separate product-by-product purchasing

    Increasing value through adoption, risk reduction, cost avoidance, and continuous innovation

    Smart Stack 3.0 helps the organization understand, refine, preserve, and control the information moving through its Microsoft environment. Microsoft provides the enterprise platforms. Zantaz improves the quality, governance, defensibility, and readiness of the data those platforms depend on.

    Outcomes

    What Your Teams Get

    Preserve Regulated Communications Defensibly

    Maintain complete, accessible, tamper-evident records with chain of custody intact.

    Support Investigations and Examinations Faster

    Locate relevant material across Microsoft 365 and file shares without repeated collection.

    Extend Legal Hold Beyond the Archive

    Connect Microsoft hold signals to broader identification, preservation, and retention.

    Classify Customer and Account Information

    Find sensitive material outside the systems of record and reduce exposure.

    Consolidate Legacy Archive Contracts

    Retire duplicated preservation platforms while keeping the obligation satisfied.

    Integrate Acquired Institutions

    Determine what the combined firm owns, what must be preserved, and what can be removed.

    Close Retention Coverage Gaps

    Show where records policy is applied, where it is missing, and where risk concentrates.

    Prepare Trusted Data for Copilot and Risk Analytics

    Give models approved, permission-aware information with visible provenance.

    AI Readiness

    Copilot Honors Permissions, Not Accuracy

    Microsoft Copilot and agents honor existing permissions. Smart Stack 3.0 helps the institution prove that the information inside those permissions is current, authoritative, classified, and appropriate for AI.

    Identify oversharing and unlabeled sensitive content before Copilot becomes a primary access layer

    Reduce redundant and obsolete content before AI indexing and embedding

    Establish ownership and policy context across business lines

    Create approved Trusted Data Collections for risk, legal, and client-facing use

    Preserve provenance so every AI answer can be traced to an authoritative source

    Prepare governed information for Fabric and OneLake instead of raw repositories

    The Readiness Ladder

    Six Stages From Visibility to AI

    1. 1

      Visibility

      Permissions, ownership, and external access across the estate

    2. 2

      Classification and Context

      Customer, employee, and regulated content identified

    3. 3

      Exposure and ROT Reduction

      Oversharing narrowed and obsolete content removed

    4. 4

      Retention and Preservation

      Records, supervision, and holds enforced

    5. 5

      Governed Trusted Data

      Matter, examination, and analytics collections built

    6. 6

      Microsoft AI Readiness

      Approved data prepared for Fabric, OneLake, and Copilot

    Timing

    Signals That Now Is the Moment

    You are expanding Microsoft 365 Copilot or deploying agents in regulated functions

    You are moving data into Fabric or OneLake

    An examination, inquiry, or investigation is testing your records position

    An archive contract is up for renewal or consolidation

    Collaboration and file estates have grown without consistent ownership or classification

    You are integrating an acquired institution and its archives

    You need to reduce volume before paying to migrate, secure, archive, discover, or process it with AI

    Three Questions for Your Leadership Team

    1. 1

      Do we know which information across Microsoft 365, Windows File Shares, archives, and connected financial systems is sensitive, authoritative, obsolete, or subject to policy?

    2. 2

      Can we connect what Microsoft reports about permissions, labels, retention, and legal holds to the broader record we must supervise and preserve?

    3. 3

      Are we preparing approved data for Fabric, OneLake, Copilot, and agents, or letting AI inherit the same governance gaps we already carry?

    Close

    Understand, Reduce, Preserve, Prepare

    Smart Stack 3.0 helps your institution understand what it has, reduce what it no longer needs, preserve what it must protect, and prepare approved Trusted Data for Microsoft analytics and AI.

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