WELCOME
…to the 17th edition of House and, with the summer coming to an end, attention towards hiring regulatory professionals has reignited across Asia. Areas of notable activity include hiring within law firms, anti-bribery and corruption functions and the buy-side looking at sell-side compliance officers. Whilst we have seen some right sizing in the investment banking sector, we don't anticipate a slowdown across the industry.
Fintech, Blockchain and data, is there really any compliance hiring yet?
We’ve been keeping our ear to the ground about potential advancements in FinTech and especially how this will affect hiring within compliance, either for vendors or users of the technology. Until recently, we’ve been hearing mixed things about whether or not investments into the sector will continue, especially as some FinTech companies have come to the end of their cycle and are even liquidating. What we have heard from clients and from our contacts at FinTech start-ups is that there is a growing confidence that Blockchain can be utilised by larger financial institutions on a permanent basis. What does this mean for compliance? At this point, hiring initial compliance officers or expanding existing teams focussing exclusively on Fintech still seems to be a while off.
Sell-side compliance officers moving to the Buy-side?
Asset managers have been coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny this year, as regional regulators have started to look closely at their compliance controls. However, the benchmark for compliance officers is not as abundant as their investment banking counterparts. The example of Terence Lim moving from Macquarie to Aberdeen highlights the willingness of the buy-side to look at compliance officers working within investment banks. Arion House recently had two clients ask to see a broader spectrum of candidates than the existing asset management compliance population.
ABC
Head of Anti-Bribery and Corruption was a job title that was extremely sparse globally only 5 years ago and even sparser across Asia. We have now seen several firms appoint a regional head of Anti-Bribery and Corruption over the last few years and start to hire teams to support them. We have also seen a notable increase in hiring in corporates recently. Where do we find experts in ABC? The majority of banks and corporates have looked to law firms. However many are also developing such professionals in-house.
Law Firms?
Law firms have started to really boost their regulatory, investigations and disputeresolution teams. Why is this happening? We guess they are conscious of the increase in investigations happening across the region and are anticipating many more. The ability to win the mandates for such investigations is lucrative and often guarantees income for a long time as these investigations typically run for several years.