This week’s COMPLY episode is the final part of a two-part discussion between our own Ashley Cianci, Katie Daley Infante, and Brilene Feyler, as they discuss regulator expectations, signals of a maturing marketing compliance program, and how AI and LLMs are changing consumer behavior.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Ignoring marketing compliance isn’t a legal defense: regulators won’t accept “we didn’t know,” and the “ostrich approach” (head in the sand) leads to hefty fines and enforcement actions, not forgiveness.
- AI and LLMs are amplifying compliance blind spots: over a third of AI-recommended URLs for major brands aren’t actually owned by the brand, some point to phishing; consumers treat AI answers as fact without verification.
- Marketing compliance is a growth enabler, not a blocker: mature programs shift from bottleneck approval processes to upstream guardrails that empower marketers and creators to launch compliant campaigns faster.
Show Notes:
- Catch up on Part 1: https://performline.com/blog-post/episode-76-the-bank-marketing-compliance-risks-youre-missing-part-1
- Download the full report, The Top Marketing Compliance Risks for Leading Banks: https://content.performline.com/top-marketing-compliance-risks-for-leading-banks
- Connect with Ashley Cianci on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-cianci/
- Connect with Brilene Feyler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brilenefeyler/
- Connect with Katie Daley Infante on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daleykatherine/
- Subscribe to PerformLine to stay connected to resources and updates: https://lp.performline.com/subscribe-to-performline
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About COMPLY: The Marketing Compliance Podcast
The state of marketing compliance and regulation is evolving faster than ever. On the COMPLY Podcast, we sit down with the biggest names in marketing, compliance, regulations, and innovation as they share their playbooks to help you take your compliance practice to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Jessica:
Hey there, COMPLY Podcast listeners. In part two of this bank marketing compliance discussion, we move from war stories to playbook. Ashley Cianci, Brilene Feyler and Katie Daley Infante get into the messy reality of disclosure management at scale, partners who don’t “speak banking” and why humans alone can’t keep up. You’ll hear how automation, upstream guardrails, and smarter collaboration with marketers, affiliates, and influencers can turn compliance from a bottleneck into a growth engine. And what a truly mature program looks like in 2026.
Ashley Cianci:
Absolutely. Because you do want to grow that scale becomes, like you said, unmanageable at a certain point. And that’s the whole goal, right? We want to get bigger and grow but do so safely. I would love your take. What is one misconception organizations still have about marketing compliance risk?
Katie Daley Infante:
If I didn’t produce it, it’s not my problem.
Brilene Feyler:
It’s kind of along the same lines. we didn’t know about it. So we. Yeah, it’s not something that we’re accountable for, right? Like we if we don’t see it. Well, Katie, you have a, you have a good analogy for this.
Katie Daley Infante:
Playing ostrich, putting your putting your head in the sand and pretending like it doesn’t exist if I never saw it, which doesn’t really go down well during a regulatory exam or a consent order.
Brilene Feyler:
Right? Regulators are not going to say, oh, you didn’t know that this was out there. Oh, okay. That’s no problem. It’s really the ability to have that insight and like prevent those mistakes. And, like I said, you know, having those parameters and guardrails in place. But yeah, regulators don’t generally just accept like, oh, sorry, we didn’t know about that. We’ll do better next time. They’ll slap you with a hefty fine and be like, yeah, you should learn from your mistakes now, but do you want to learn because you got in trouble? Potentially were labeled as a bad actor or like know about these things in advance.
Ashley Cianci:
This is a great segue, actually into our next topic of kind of this complex marketing ecosystem and just regulatory environment that we’re in. So we’ve talked about these issues, how they’re repeatable, how scale can turn relatively small issues into something much more material. The broader oversight landscape is evolving as well. And over the past few years, we’ve seen shifts in how enforcement is happening, both at the federal level and the state level. And while at the same time, marketing ecosystems and technologies are continuing to evolve.
So it’s finally time to chat about everyone’s favorite topic. But before we do that, Brilene over the past few years, we’ve seen some shifts in the regulatory landscape, including a perception of reduced federal enforcement in certain areas while states have become increasingly active in others. So from the conversations you’re having with banks, how are institutions responding to this new environment we’re in? Are they changing how they think about oversight, or are they maintaining the same level of scrutiny despite the uncertainty?
Brilene Feyler:
I mean, the banks that we’re talking to have not reduced oversight. just because the landscape feels a little bit, I’ll say like less aggressive from the federal level doesn’t mean that it is totally gone. But the states have actually been stepping up and issuing consent orders and doing more of their own exams. And so we are seeing state regulators, attorney generals, having that continued focus on digital consumer experiences, consumer protection, making sure that there aren’t misleading marketing claims.
And so I’ll say that it’s almost more stressful in some ways because instead of it just being a standardized, federal oversight, if you have a multi-state footprint, you can have many different regulatory agencies that are kind of overseeing you. You have different disclosures for different states, different products. and so that can be stressful. That’s something that I’m definitely hearing from compliance teams or they’re saying like, we actually don’t know what’s going on all the time because there’s constantly changes.
And so trying to do their day to day work while things are in flux, just puts a lot on their plate. And so that can definitely be stressful. And then I would say like knowing that the environment can shift again in the future, like we see this as almost a pendulum swinging. There are times where there is less perceived oversight, and then it will likely swing back at some point. Not knowing when that is, is stressful.
And then there’s also a potential look-back period. And so if banks were to really lessen their oversight, now, who’s to say that three, five years from now, there isn’t a shift where all of a sudden they get in trouble for something that they’re doing currently, which seemed like it might be okay in this regulatory environment, but actually, could put them at risk for some sort of regulatory action in the future.
Ashley Cianci:
Yeah, that is all so valuable, I think, for folks to hear. And just to reiterate, especially like you said, the multi-state footprints that people are working in today and just the it’s not going to hurt folks to be proactive continuously, especially if the pendulum does swing and there is a retroactive kind of lookback period. So I appreciate that.
Okay, Katie, now it’s time for everyone’s favorite topic. The marketing ecosystem itself is evolving very, very quickly. We all feel it in our day to days, particularly with the rise of AI driven tools and large language models that pull from existing content across the web. So how do you see technologies like AI changing how organizations think about monitoring and compliance oversight?
Katie Daley Infante:
Yeah, I mean, it’s changing so quickly and consumer behavior is changing so quickly. It went from, you know, googling everything to get your answer. And now I have to use my assistant Chatty- G to get all the answers that I want. And you can only anticipate people are going to start doing that for: what credit card should I take out? What loan is best for me? Who has the best HELOC rates? Whatever it is.
So we’re starting to see those patterns of consumer actions, behaviors changing. And that’s where the ads and the marketing is going to meet them. There’s already talks, you know, through the grapevine about players like ChatGPT and others pushing towards monetization and working with partners to begin ads. So naturally, you’re going to have to start monitoring there because it really feeds into each other.
So there was some research done that says over a third of AI recommended URLs for major brands aren’t actually owned by the brand, and some even point to phishing sites.
So we’re talking about a lot of exposure there. Where are these prompts getting answers from?
Well, it’s the stuff that’s publicly available on the web, so you kind of have to tidy up the house there. That’s the whole owned and operated third party unknown risk that we were talking about earlier. So if you want good answers, you have to figure out where the data is coming from and how to clean the house.
And then the second part is how do you actually monitor the answers there on the LLMs and these Gen AI models? So I think things are quickly evolving and we’ll see some early adopters to a lot of these changes and behaviors and iterate from there. It’s always something new.
Brilene Feyler:
Right? And it kind of goes back to that. The head in the sand analogy too, where it’s like, this is happening whether you want it to or not.
So it is not safe enough to say: oh, well, we’re not advertising in that way or we’re not pushing information to those types of sites. It is happening, and consumers are meeting information about your banks, your brands, your products there, whether you like it or not. And so being aware of that, being educated helps, but really having that additional oversight and awareness is going to be crucial going forward. for sure.
Katie Daley Infante:
It kind of reminds me of when TikTok first came out and people were saying, we don’t really monitor, we don’t allow people to publish there. Well, the influencers are talking about you and your reward system and your points or whatever you’re offering. So, you know, you actually are marketing and advertising there. You just don’t know it.
Ashley Cianci:
That’s what I was going to reiterate is that it all feeds each other. Even the story you told, that first Brilene, of the affiliate taking a [incorrect] deposit amount from an owned and operated site, right, like that is just the simplest version of what AI is getting fed from other things.
So the sooner to Katie’s point, you clean the house, out there in the wild, as I said, like then AI has less likelihood of pulling things in because yeah, consumers are absolutely going to look to these agents to help them with financial decisions. It’s happening, and I think only going to increase over time.
Brilene Feyler:
And so many people are taking that as truth.
They’re not getting these answers from Claude or ChatGPT and then saying, okay, I’ll go double check and do my research. That is their research. They’re taking this at face value and saying, okay, it’s this rate or this fee or whatever. And like, well, ChatGPT/chatty told me that. So I’m just going to run with that. And it poses a lot of risk for sure. But people do think they’re like, oh, I’m, I’m well informed. I did my research and it’s truly just an AI prompt, but that’s a whole other, that’s a whole other webinar that’s not for me.
Katie Daley Infante:
I am people.
Ashley Cianci:
Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re learning about it at the same time, everyone else is. So as we learn more, we’ll continue to try to educate. But I think it’s a topic that we have to bring up and continue to discuss, especially to help our folks stay ahead of it.
All right. We’re on to our last section. It really brings us all of that brings us to the question of how oversight models and our practices and processes for marketing compliance are evolving. In practice. They have to. We have to continuously make them better, and we have to encourage folks to stay ahead of it.
So Pre-publication review is a critical control and Katie talked about that a lot, but it governs what organizations launch and they approve before it goes out, into the digital space. So it doesn’t necessarily control how content spreads, changes ages online, which we’ve talked about a ton. So, Katie, how are leading institutions moving beyond the Pre-publication review stage as they mature their oversight models?
Katie Daley Infante:
Yeah, I think as an industry, we’re seeing people move more and more upstream. And what I mean by that is this is no longer a controlled process owned by just legal and compliance. They’re actually passing the buck down to the content creators and the copywriters.
Let’s meet you where you’re at. So you’re getting this feedback in real time can iterate, be creative. Like we want you to come up with new ideas that we’ve never seen before, but test it, you know, against a prompt. Test it against our guardrails that we have in place so you can make better, more compliant content at scale. So the closer you can get to the content creation and the idea and the inception of these campaigns and new brand strategies, the easier it is on everybody.
Brilene Feyler: Mhm.
Ashley Cianci: Absolutely. Do you want to add to that, Brilene?
Brilene Feyler: I think that’s good. Just in full agreement. Yes.
Ashley Cianci:
So I would love I have two kind of big questions for both of you to wrap up, but I’ll ask the first one and let you both answer. As you look across organizations at different stages of maturity, because we really do speak with different financial institutions in their marketing compliance oversight varies depending on where they are. What’s the one signal that a marketing compliance program is becoming more mature?
Brilene Feyler:
Katie, do you want to take this one first?
Katie Daley Infante:
I’ll answer from the pre-publication side. If you want to do post-publication side, like what are some of the signals that we see? It’s a lot of that back and forth kind of the, you know, two teams battling against each other for we want new consumers, we want these new leads. Let’s generate some ideas for growth. But we actually can’t because the bottleneck is this approvals process internally.
Once you start seeing those conversations, that’s a really good indicator: Hey, we need something to help us get to our goals, hit our new revenue targets, whatever it is, and launch these new campaigns on the pre-publication side.
Brilene Feyler:
Yeah. And then Post-publication, it’s really when teams are feeling pressure and stress from trying to scale, right? Like it’s just getting unmanageable to be able to bring on more partners, whether it’s fintech partners, or marketing partners or Katie mentioned, like, phone offers like there are all these different ways that banks are trying to differentiate themselves, offer more relatable benefits and things to their customers and to consumers.
And so as they’re trying to do that, it becomes really apparent that the old process just does not work anymore and it feels really out of control.
So being able to create frameworks that allow marketing to really move quickly, maintain visibility, scale, but still have that accountability for the internal teams and also any external partners is really important.
I would say, when teams stop being able to react to individual issues is something that is probably an indicator, like we need to get a process in place and we’re feeling a lot of friction here and that we can put something in the works that allows us to just do our job better.
Again, I feel like I keep going back to like growth and scalability, but that is one of the biggest things that we’ll get dollars behind a new initiative, if we are essentially bringing in more revenue, if we’re able to cater to our customers better, then that is also something that is going to be supported from an organizational standpoint. But it is something like we’re just kind of seeing across the board here that people are, I would say, like busting at the seams with what they need to do and just do not have enough support.
Ashley Cianci:
Yeah. Well, we were talking about this webinar and we were prepping for the three of us. I think the words were used: The struggle is the signal of maturity.
When you feel that like we can’t keep up or it’s a scale issue like we’ve talked about, but I think that is such a clear way to say like, okay, what we are doing currently as far as a process of marketing compliance is no longer scalable. We need to put something into place. We need to put processes that we all agree upon; It’s clean; We can update, consistently across channels. That’s really when you need to level up.
All right. My final question for both of you. If you could give advice to an organization on how to design their marketing compliance oversight today, knowing what you know now, what would you say?
Katie Daley Infante:
Get ready. No, stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. Right? Don’t be on the back foot with these issues. You don’t want an exam or a consent order to be the reason why you’re going to market and looking for something.
Brilene Feyler:
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s like the same thing I would say is just like, don’t wait, don’t wait until someone makes an example out of you until you have an enforcement action. Truly like, the proactive organizations that we work with see marketing compliance as that catalyst for growth and not a constraint.
They see it as, and I think Katie did a really good job of explaining this, like giving the creators and the marketing teams the ability to be more independent, more proactive and just cut down on that internal friction. Just waiting is not going to help. And we talked about this in a lot of different ways, but like the more foresight and the more proactive you can have and be the better for sure.
Ashley Cianci:
Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for your amazing insights today.
Ashley Cianci:
Thank you Brilene. Thank you Katie. We appreciate your time and we’ll see you on the next one.
Brilene Feyler:
Thank you.
Katie Daley Infante:
Thank you.
Jessica:
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the COMPLY Podcast!
As always for the latest content on all things marketing compliance you can head to performline.com/resources. And for the most up-to-date pieces of industry news, events, and content be sure to follow PerformLine on LinkedIn.
Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time!
