AML/Compliance/KYC professionals come in!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There are many deterring comments and no one could reply on how to be a gd compliance officer?

errr pray hard nothing goes wrong during audit and MAS inspection? Good or bad is not up to you to decide, is what others perceived of you.

Why don't you go and ask the auditors what it takes to be good at their job? the responses should be somewhat similar in nature......

It's always 2 sides to a coin, whether to be pro business or to be committed to the regulations. A straightforward response obviously is to give you the typical textbook answer, of which you are able to google it online. But those that are in the trench now know its not necessary the case.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Your comments are different from the rest, who said KYC/AML are operational in nature and lowest paid and can get outsourced.

Other than KYC, AML, regulatory compliance, are there no other choices, in terms of prospects?

of course there are others, FATCA/CRS, products and securities, M&A, general compliance (i.e. LSR, PADD and etc), control rooms and we also have compliance personnel that are sitting in the trading floors and the list goes on.

KYC/AML is not necessary bad, its higher rungs are usually less prone to outsourcing... its remuneration is not skyhigh as to what other FO compliance is drawing (i.e. markets). But of course high or low is dependent on each person's appetite.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There are many deterring comments and no one could reply on how to be a gd compliance officer?

good compliance officer?
become the most hated compliance officer by following the book totally.
you sure sibei song get scolded by alot of people and then they call your superior to complain about you.

Are there differences between the compliance function of insurance companies and banks? Can the experience gained in insurance compliance of relevance to job functions of banks vice versa? Appreciate any advice.

can shed some views for me which will u choose:

onboarding/periodic review VS txn monitoring/investigation

Txn monitoring seems onerous and high risk...

Hi I was wondering if someone could help me out with this. I recently graduated with a law degree but I have decided to enter the compliance industry. I have not gotten any replies probably due to my inexperience in this area. How do I gain more exposure in this area as most jobs are looking at 1-2 years of experience? Also, I have applied for some graduate management programmes as well, would it be useful?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi I was wondering if someone could help me out with this. I recently graduated with a law degree but I have decided to enter the compliance industry. I have not gotten any replies probably due to my inexperience in this area. How do I gain more exposure in this area as most jobs are looking at 1-2 years of experience? Also, I have applied for some graduate management programmes as well, would it be useful?

You ask a good question. Here is an honest reply:

1) Set your expected salary to $SGD 2,500 starting pay.
2) Apply for 6 months contract roles
3) Re-adjust your expectations as you will be in the same pool of candidates from private universities like SIM.
4) You have to outshine many other contract staffs to succeed

Originally Posted by Unregistered

can shed some views for me which will u choose:

onboarding/periodic review VS txn monitoring/investigation

Txn monitoring seems onerous and high risk...

Anyone pls?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

i worked in the compliance dept in a private bank in SG. I had a temp staff 2 months ago, a freshie from one of the local U. i asked, given his results he could probably get better placement elsewhere, in other industries even. His answer - "but compliance is very hot now mah and since i can't make it for IB i can't miss this boat now".

Well... he's not wrong either. I told him if he expects people to pay you upwards of $5k /m and still expect work life balance as a fresh grad <3years of exp or if he thinks advising people merely is shooting off emails or taking phone calls, telling the other party to 'just do it', perhaps he should drop that thought and be real.

Its always hard to juggle between the business and being compliant. It's always the same question of "to what extent it is sufficient?". We draft policies and procedures, put it out on the table, next thing we know is that we'll be sitting in a meeting room with few other department heads or team leads challenging every nitty gritty details inside. And everyone knows how the MAS papers are written, they will not take any position (their RBA bs), directives are always open-ended, leaving rooms for them to manuevre around and on the other side of the coin, ample space for people to come up with "solutions" in varying degrees mostly in the grey areas just because "but regulations didn't say what"

and that's just SG, not even talking about rule books from other jurisdictions yet. But of course, my temp staff just looked at me being all confused... haha

i'm currently doing onboarding/period reviews. always see the compliance department having meetings and just a single clause on the policy can take months to be effected cos it has to be concurred by business management as well.

i started out with 2.5k as a contract staff, got converted to perm at the 6th month mark and got 2.7k. then suddenly one batch of old birds left, i guess the management panicked and decided to give a pay raise to the newly converted staffs to prevent further resignations. at the 7th month mark, i got a raise to 3.1k. sometimes you just have to be at the right place at the right time but i don't think compliance advisory is for me though i like doing onboarding.

why isn't sanctions talked about? i would think it's under compliance as well.

Hi all, I'm currently doing compliance in the stockbroking industry. Have been here for about 5 years and I find it very difficult to move to a bank. There's not much specialisation for my role cos I do everything from advisory to TM to AML. But it seems like experience in a non bank FI is not considered relevant. The pay is much much lower than market rate (currently only low 3s) and that's why I'm looking to move. Having been trying to look for quite a while but only contract positions available. Not sure if it's worth giving up a perm position here for a contract one in a bank.