Very true and well said. Hoping the management wakes up one day. Indeed, no one will want to reject new task for the fear of being penalised in appraisal. Furthermore, with the high workload, mas shld look at reviewing salary package. Otherwise, moral will be down and eventually ppl leaves the organisation.

*morale will be down

there will always be fresh ppl to come onboard

exactly, considering MAS is considered top tier CS with scope to move to FI's there are a trainload of people waiting to take your position if you leave

Thinking of going to a bank alr. Mas is underpaid

Recent comments on this thread seem to be leaning towards negative sentiment... Were the common issues (e.g. being overworked and underpaid, excessive additional projects/tasks) always present? Based on superficial look at the earlier comments, it seemed that it wasn't so bad in the past.

Personally, I feel the compensation is ok, but the workload is not.

Compared to seven years ago, officers are expected to work on at least 1.5x the amount of ongoing projects, some of which are only marginally related to their core jobscope.

As you can guess, many of these projects relate to developments in the financial industry like sustainability matters, cyber risk, corporate governance, etc.

Of course, it is important for officers to keep abrest of these matters. But it is far more important for MAS to ensure that it is dedicating enough resources and not dump the workolad on existing officers.

It is not that officers don't wish to take on challenges, but there are simply limits to how effectively an officer can handle so many ongoing projects at the same time, most of which are only tangentially-related to his/her core jobscope. The officers get worn out, and simple projects that can be easily completed get pushed back further and further.

The organization is aware that headcount is lacking (I hope), and they always cite budget constraints. While headcount has actually been increasing over the years, it has been at a glacial pace and the increase in workload has far outpaced the increase in headcount.

When you compare with other big central banks and regulators, I daresay that their workload is way more manageable, and this is because their countries do not have a problem dedicating resources where it is needed. Over here, the organization expects excellent performance but is unwilling to put its money where its mouth is in terms of staffing (how the organization actually allocates projects to staff can take up an entire separate post).

Staff turnover has actually not been very high. I hazard a guess that this is due to COVID-19, where people see the benefits of having stability in a job and where companies might be cautious in their hiring. However, as soon as there is a new normal in place, I get a sense that many staff would be wanting out at the first opportunity.

To its credit, the organization is aware of staff morale and mental health, and has several initiatives that address this. This is all well and good and ought to be promoted elsewhere. However, I would liken it to putting bandages over a gaping wound; it is not enough. You have to close the wound by acknowledging and tackling the problem at the source.

Well said! May I suggest that you reflect this in the upcoming employee satisfaction survey?

Bonus
 

Do u know the month which Mas pays bonus and which is the earliest month one can resign?

Bonus was paid on 9 April 2021.
To be on the safe side, i resigned only after getting the amount. Because have 3 months notice period.

Was it a challenge finding a new job with a 3 month notice period (typical notice period is around a month)?

Job
 

Is it worth to jump to banks? If so, local banks or investment banks like credit suisse, Nomura etc?

How many % increment to ask to jump to local banks?

Of course. I interviewed with a small insurance company for a compliance role, and they were taken aback when I said I can only start in 3 months' time. Although in the end they still offered the role, I did not take it up because it seem to be full of sai Kang.

Unsavory work
 

Totally agree with this post - Not sure why management will naively think that it is possible to keep increasing productivity of staff to deal with the ever increasing work demands as the financial sector grows. The technological "improvements" introduced involving analytics have given rise to more issues/false positives to be followed-up manually in the supervisory space.

The general morale of the existing staff is only going to get worse, with ever increasing workload, leaving very little time to pursue training, self development and reflection, coupled with peers in the private sector earning more in general for their hours of labor. The whole vicious cycle leading to low morale can be summarised as follows:

Boss or his/her superior wants multiple initiatives to pursued within the work year, delegates this task to a team without consideration of resource/capacity constraints ---> This gets delegated further down the chain, with arbitrary deadline set, officers are expected to multitask and meet this deadline ---> get questioned why the task cannot be completed, reason such as being bogged down by daily BAU, or covering team-mates who have resigned/on long term leave is often unacceptable ---> Officers burn out over time, and tries to kick the can down the road as much as possible, until they resign ---> Boss again delegates the task to other officers/new joiners who often don't get proper handover from officers who have resigned.

This is only the unsavory work part (the push factor) of the equation. Coupled with the generally low pay factor vis-a-vis the private sector which is hiring, it is a no brainer why officers will eventually leave. Perhaps management should also reflect on why are there so many job opportunities in the market that are suitable for MAS officers to fill, that is because there are many new initiatives (developmental, new regulatory requirements) that have already been pushed out, forcing increase in labor demand to pursue new opportunities or to implement a new reg change. When will management think it is enough to take a break, or that it warrants increase in headcount to deal with the enquiries or applications borne out of these new initiatives?

Management often pitch that technological improvements will help us to manage our workload better (think - chat bot). Please wake up from this Joke (think - the recent embarrassment of "Ask Jamie" answering a simple and relevant question on COVID). Technological improvements will not make our daily tasks of answering enquiries that are so dynamic (with varying degree of understanding required) any easier, and will only embarrass MAS further, if we are sending Bots to address consumer queries. The solution is really to increase labor to meet the demands of the new economy. And please stop underpricing the cost of staff turnover (especially experienced staff with rich institutional knowledge) - Please appreciate the well being of your existing staff more!

Hi Admin, I posted a rather long reply to this, and would like to delete it please. Can you assist please :)

MAS DD Pay
 

what is base salary, PB, and the annual package a DD gets in MAS, average?

you sure that you can transition to a bank so easily?

Bank is so big, depends on which roles the bank is looking for. Someone with a financial regulatory background should be able to snag a role.

First few years of DD is about 9k+

Total package about 14.5 months approx

Apologies. Total package is about 13.5 not 14.5

I have seen this job ad - "Deputy Director / Assistant Director, Enforcement (Investigator)" being reposted on Careers@gov over the past few months. Is the turn over really that bad?

Dont seems competitive. But they trying to hire alot recently.

Gone are the days when MAS officers have an edge. The banking landscape changed alot the last few years and sorry to disappoint but MAS officers do not have the skillset to be good fit. Even if you are from a supervisory role, it can be hard unless you have relevant technical skillsets.

It could also mean a very picky or fussy hiring manager

what are the "relevant technical skillsets", if you don't mind me asking?

Regulatory skills like MAS637 policy, specialists role etc

Let me offer a slightly different perspective.

Compliance is a very big field. It ranges from financial reporting to tech risk all the way to anti-money laundering. It is true that an MAS officer will not have experience in all of these fields (unless he has rotated around the various departments). Indeed, it is also rare even for people outside MAS to be able to specialize in so many areas.

Where an MAS officer can add value, is how they are able to grasp the regulations, even of departments different to their own. The fact of the matter is that MAS is a very principle-based regulator. Our regulations are thinner compared to other jurisdictions that have 99 rules for each of their 999 regulations. Being able to understand the broadly what the regulations intend for and then further drilling down into the hard requirements is something that a company would also want.

No one can say for certain whether an MAS officer (or for that matter, any other candidate) would be a good fit for a company. However, it is a fairly common occurrence to find MAS officers making the transition into the private sector, some even in senior roles. To a large extent, the labour market for certain compliance roles is tight that may also be contributing to this; FIs may well be more accepting of less than ideal candidates as long as they have some regulatory/compliance experience.

Of course, if you are talking about making a switch from a compliance role to a rates trader in an investment bank, then yes, that would be quite a feat.

I attended mas interview (2 rounds) recently. Quite a closed-minded /traditional-thinking bunch. Glad I didn't join.

Heard that technical skills not in favor these days.

What is in favor these days then, if you don't mind sharing?

The “song and dance” people. Don’t need to know your stuff cos with the frequent internal reshuffling, some senior people also do not know the correct questions to ask. Everybody is just looking for the next shiny thing.

sounds good, where can i sign up

The biggest problem with this organisation is that senior management is unaware of their own blind spots. They throw out lines that they are emphatic about the ever increasing workload while creating 101 unnecessary new projects. They do not realise that they are the ones creating the additional work in the first place and assume work is arising because of other factors. Every meeting has follow-ups or new work streams created.

Many times, the work created is a waste of time. Its predominantly some egoistical exercise for them to flex their arms.

Mid career switch - possible to get a pay bump at market rate?

Careers@gov. I got in to seek shelter during covid 19 and I've been enjoying excellent work life balance during work from home. :)

This is civil service. Your pay is at a discount to private sector. Unlikely you will see a bump unless your are currently underpaid.

I think the last sentence is really a bit too harsh. Humans are naturally curious, and this extends to all of us, including the management team. But curiosity should be grounded in reality. Thought experiments should remain as thought experiments unless you have the necessary resources to carry them out.

Some of the projects now, I would say, are akin to a General asking his medics to perform a commando raid on an enemy outpost. The medics are specialists in their fields, but they are clearly not trained as special forces. The General thinks this is not an issue, and simply request the medics to ask the commandos for some advice on how to perform the raid. He then expects the medics to perform the raid. Not only that, he still expects the medics to perform their medic duties at the same time while preparing for the raid. Such thinking is actually rather pervasive.

Maybe this is their so called thinking out of box or creativity? Non group-think mindset?
Having had a stint in CS, I can see similar patterns. One only need to look at the background/training of our ministers and the portfolios they are taking on…

Anyone gotten offer from MAS recently? Do they just match your last drawn (including bonus) to the dollar? or will there be slight increment?