CAREER GUIDANCE
However, in a competitive market the top compliance talent can be hard to come by. Research published last month by SWIFT, Dow Jones and ACAMS found that having enough properly trained anti-money laundering( AML) staff was a concern for 57 percent of the AML professionals surveyed— up from 36 percent in 2013— and 26 percent of respondents listed this as their top challenge. 1 Therefore, banks are having to work harder than ever before to attract confirmed compliance talent from other banks and vendors. At the same time, banks are proactively developing in-house talent to meet their compliance needs.
Against this backdrop, it is important to take all measures necessary to attract, retain and develop top compliance talent. One way in which banks can achieve this is by building a strong compliance culture across the organization.
Why choose compliance?
In the past, the compliance function has not always been seen as the most attractive career opportunity by ambitious candidates. There is a lingering perception that compliance, while necessary to the organization, acts as a hindrance to business development. As such, some talented candidates have preferred to focus their attention on business development opportunities.
However, while today’ s more stringent regulatory environment is not without its challenges, it has also highlighted the considerable appeal of a career in compliance. For one thing, compliance is increasingly seen as a noble cause, which speaks to the values of many professionals. Working to prevent the illicit money flows that support terrorist financing, human trafficking, drug dealing and corruption means that people working in this area feel they are making a positive contribution to society and building a better world.
At the same time, compliance is an intellectually demanding discipline, presenting challenges that are likely to appeal to high achievers. Not all compliance roles are the same, but whether an individual is a specialist compliance expert or a general management professional supporting the compliance team, the role of the compliance professional is both challenging and fulfilling.
There is much that will draw top talent to a career in compliance, but in a competitive recruitment climate banks cannot rely on this appeal alone. By tapping into opportunities for innovation and collaboration in this area, banks can build a culture of compliance that will not only achieve cost and efficiency benefits, but also increase the appeal of their organizations for compliance professionals.
Innovation
Central to building a compliance culture is the adoption of innovative technology. While the prospect of having to comply with regulations may not be appealing in and of itself, organizations that position compliance as an epicenter of innovation and actively pursue new opportunities to drive efficiency, have more to offer candidates than organizations that approach compliance as a tickbox exercise.
There are a number of ways in which compliance professionals can embrace innovation. In order to achieve compliance with the necessary regulations, professionals need to make sure that their processes and policies are effective, and that they meet expectations. With this achieved, compliance staff can then explore innovations that can increase the efficiency of the organization in meeting regulatory requirements. Beyond this, specific regulations may present opportunities for financial institutions to achieve further improvements.
Leveraging the DFS regulation
Last year’ s publication of the New York Department of Financial Service’ s new risk-based anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering regulation is an example of how banks can take advantage of regulations in order to achieve further advancements. The regulation requires banks operating in New York to maintain appropriate watchlist filtering and transaction monitoring programs. Banks are also required to carry out regular testing and demonstrate that their programs are both compliant and aligned with the organization’ s risk appetite.
Institutions affected by this regulation can simply choose to fulfill the requirements. Alternatively, they can take advantage of the opportunity that the regulation presents to enhance their quality assurance programs and to build a more robust compliance regime, thereby reducing costs and improving the efficiency of their environments.
Embracing continuous improvement
The same is true of other regulatory requirements. Throughout the compliance discipline, there are opportunities to embrace innovation and to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement.
For example, sanctions screening involves checking transactions for names that appear on regulators’ sanctions lists. To achieve this, banks have to refine the parameters of their sanctions screening filters to make sure that they identify illicit transactions, even if names do not appear exactly as they do on the sanctions list.
1
“ 2017 Global Anti-Money Laundering Survey,” Dow Jones and SWIFT, http:// go. dowjones. com / AMLsurvey2017
ACAMS TODAY | SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2017 | ACAMS. ORG | ACAMSTODAY. ORG 63