Is regulatory compliance most stable?
What other kinds of compliance are there, in terms of stability?

My advice for all here is to think whether you like compliance, not beacause of it popularity now or stability. You dont know the stress compliance officer face on a daily basis. U just need one error and you may lose your job. It's not a cruise through life.

THIS^ Although crudely spoken, is the absolute truth. If you are from a different role and are drawn by what forums have been misleading you into believing is the hot industry, then welcome to the reality of compliance/aml/kyc.

Those who start out as the lowliest sai kang warriors start out as underpaid contract staffs. Of every 10 contract staffs, maybe only 1 may get converted to perm, subject to the bank's headcount which is usually freezing or decreasing. Dog eat dog world, politics and wayang is everywhere.

Sorry to be honest but you'd better lower expectations when it comes to aml/kyc.

What's your advice on how should one equip himself to be a good compliance officer?

As for yr comment on error, it applies to many professions.

Just would like to add on that it is not all fine and dandy for KYC as well. We are faced with tremendous pressure by business, compliance, audit and management everyday. It's an incredibly stressful environment that sometimes I wish I can leave this industry.

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

Hi I am the poster you replied to. Cant agree more with what you said.

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

Stability comes at a trade off.
Regulatory compliance pay will never match the other compliance specializations.

If you are lucky, get on to be KYC or AML if there is the chance.
Nobody with choice will choose regulatory compliance.
Higher stress but lower pay.

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?