Digital asset management built for compliance – How Asset Bank helps marketing teams use assets confidently

Marketing teams face a growing compliance challenge.

Every image, video, document and piece of creative content comes with rules. Licences expire. Consent can be withdrawn. Assets need to be shared with agencies, partners and regional teams without losing control. Yet most digital asset management systems focus on storage and search while leaving compliance to manual processes and spreadsheets.

Asset Bank takes a different approach.

As the DAM built for compliance, Asset Bank gives organisations complete control over how assets are uploaded, managed, found, shared and downloaded. By combining powerful metadata, permissions, usage rights and consent management capabilities, it helps teams use assets confidently, control access and protect rights.

Create a single source of truth with rich metadata

Compliance starts with context.

An asset without metadata is simply a file. An asset with structured metadata becomes a governed marketing resource that teams can use with confidence.

Asset Bank allows organisations to create custom metadata fields alongside standard attributes such as titles, descriptions and keywords. These can include product IDs, regions, campaign information, image credits, usage rights, licence dates, consent information and model release forms. Important fields can be highlighted to ensure users never miss critical information.

This flexibility means organisations can build metadata structures that reflect their compliance requirements.

For example:

• Rights and licence information can travel with every asset
• Consent forms can be attached directly to imagery
• Credit requirements can be displayed prominently
• Regional restrictions can be recorded and enforced
• Expiry dates can be tracked centrally

The result is a complete audit trail around every asset, helping teams understand exactly what can be used, where and for how long.

GEA uses Asset Bank as a central source of truth for 18,000 employees across five divisions, with assets tagged by industry, product group and usage rights. This ensures employees can quickly locate approved content while maintaining governance across a global organisation.

Upload assets with governance built in

Compliance issues often begin at the point of upload.

When assets enter a DAM without proper metadata, permissions or rights information, organisations create risk that follows the asset throughout its lifecycle.

Asset Bank supports the upload of images, videos, documents, audio files and many other asset types. Existing metadata can be imported alongside assets during migration projects, ensuring valuable rights, licensing and attribution information is retained.

Asset Bank can also extract and map embedded rights metadata during upload, helping organisations preserve usage information automatically.

This creates a strong compliance foundation from day one by ensuring:

• Rights information is captured immediately
• Consent documentation remains connected to assets
• Metadata remains consistent across the library
• Teams can trust asset records from the outset

For organisations migrating from legacy systems, this significantly reduces the risk of losing critical compliance information during transition.

Make assets easy to find – and safe to use

The ability to find assets quickly is essential. The ability to find the right assets is even more important.

Asset Bank's search capabilities combine metadata, advanced filtering and browsing options to help users locate approved content quickly and accurately.

Users can search by:

• Keywords
• Metadata fields
• Categories
• Date ranges
• Saved searches
• Asset types
• Custom attributes

This is particularly valuable for organisations managing large content libraries.

Clarion Housing uses Asset Bank's advanced metadata and search capabilities to ensure staff can quickly locate the correct files through keyword searches, metadata filters and auto-complete functionality.

From a compliance perspective, effective search reduces the likelihood that users resort to outdated assets stored elsewhere. Teams are more likely to use approved content when they can find it quickly.

Asset Bank also supports the management of sensitive content through access controls and permissions.

IPPF uses Asset Bank to limit access to sensitive content while improving discoverability across thousands of assets.

Put usage rights front and centre

Most DAM platforms store rights information.

Asset Bank helps enforce it.

Rights management is one of Asset Bank's most important differentiators. Usage rights, licence information, restrictions and credit requirements are surfaced throughout the user experience to ensure they cannot be overlooked.

Rights information can be displayed:

• On asset records
• During search and browse
• During download workflows
• Within metadata fields
• Through rights agreements and acknowledgements

Asset Bank's agreement functionality allows organisations to require users to acknowledge specific usage terms before downloading assets. Assets can be categorised according to their rights status, helping users understand restrictions before they use content.

This transforms rights management from a passive record into an active compliance control.

The University of Queensland uses Asset Bank to display rights information clearly throughout the download process, reinforcing compliance at the moment users access assets.

Get consent right every time

Consent management is increasingly important for marketing teams, particularly in sectors such as education, not-for-profit, healthcare and housing.

Many organisations still manage consent separately from the assets it governs. This creates risk when consent expires, changes or is withdrawn.

Asset Bank enables organisations to link consent information and model release forms directly to assets through metadata structures and supporting documentation.

When consent records remain attached to the content they govern, organisations gain:

• Better visibility of consent status
• Reduced reliance on spreadsheets
• Faster compliance checks
• Stronger audit trails
• Greater confidence in asset usage

The University of Bristol previously relied on manual consent management processes before implementing Asset Bank. Their teams had to wait for permissions before using marketing assets, creating inefficiencies and increasing administrative burden. Asset Bank helped centralise and streamline this process.

This aligns directly with Asset Bank's compliance mission: helping organisations get consent right every time.

Keep content in the right hands with granular permissions

Controlling access is a critical compliance requirement.

Not every user should see every asset. Not every team should be able to download high-resolution files. Not every agency should have access to sensitive content.

Asset Bank provides highly granular permissions and user-group controls that allow organisations to determine exactly who can:

• View assets
• Upload content
• Edit metadata
• Download files
• Access collections
• Approve requests

Permissions can be configured around departments, territories, brands, agencies, suppliers or any organisational structure.

Amnesty International selected Asset Bank specifically because flexible permissions were essential for protecting individuals featured in sensitive marketing campaigns.

Similarly, the University of Queensland uses role-based and group-based permissions across faculties and departments, with automatic user provisioning to ensure people only access appropriate content.

These controls help organisations keep content in the right hands while reducing the risk of misuse.

Share assets safely through lightboxes and collections

Marketing teams frequently need to share groups of assets with colleagues, agencies and external stakeholders.

Asset Bank's lightboxes and collections provide a controlled way to organise, review and distribute content without compromising governance.

Assets can be grouped into collections for campaigns, projects, events or approval workflows. This helps teams collaborate around approved content while maintaining visibility and control.

Santander uses Asset Bank to group campaign assets together, making it easier to manage asset usage and respond quickly when regulatory changes require updates.

This ability to organise related assets is particularly valuable for compliance because it enables teams to:

• Track campaign content consistently
• Update affected assets quickly
• Reduce the risk of outdated content remaining in circulation
• Improve governance across campaigns

Control downloads and reduce compliance risk

The download process is often the final point at which organisations can prevent misuse.

Asset Bank embeds compliance into this moment.

Depending on permissions and rights settings, organisations can:

• Require download approval
• Restrict access to certain file sizes
• Present rights information during download
• Enforce agreement acceptance
• Apply watermarks to previews
• Track download activity

Watermarked previews help prevent unauthorised use while still allowing users to review content before download.

Download approvals create an additional compliance checkpoint for sensitive assets.

Santander uses Asset Bank's download request functionality to review requests before granting access, providing greater control over asset usage.

These controls help organisations balance accessibility with governance.

Customise the platform around your compliance model

Every organisation has different governance requirements.

Asset Bank's configurable architecture allows teams to tailor metadata, permissions, workflows, homepage experiences and asset structures around their specific compliance needs.

Whether managing:

• Global brand assets
• Regulated financial content
• Educational photography
• Housing association imagery
• Charity storytelling assets

Asset Bank can be configured to reflect existing approval processes and compliance frameworks.

This flexibility ensures compliance is embedded within daily workflows rather than operating as a separate process.

The DAM built for compliance

Most DAM platforms help organisations store and share content.

Asset Bank helps organisations stay compliant.

By bringing together metadata management, permissions, rights management, consent tracking, controlled downloads, secure sharing and powerful search, Asset Bank enables marketing teams to move faster without increasing risk.

The result is a single source of truth where users always know:

• Whether they can use an asset
• How it can be used
• Who can access it
• Whether consent is valid
• Whether licences remain active

That's why organisations including Amnesty International, the University of Bristol, the University of Queensland, GEA, IPPF and Clarion Housing trust Asset Bank to manage their most valuable content while protecting rights, controlling access and reducing compliance risk.

Use assets confidently. Control access. Protect rights.