Audit, Risk & Compliance
Are you a Banking professional looking for your next opportunity? At Gravitas, we are a Banking recruitment agency, with expert consultants striving to help you explore the market and find you the best next job opportunity. Operating in niche specialist teams, we create and maintain valuable relationships across specific specialist networks, such as Audit, Risk & Compliance.
Our teams have in-depth knowledge in Internal Audit, Compliance across Regulatory, General, Financial Crime, Surveillance, IBD, Control Room and Markets, as well as Risk Management in Market, Credit, Operational, Technology, Enterprise, Climate and Investment. Our consultants cover permanent and temporary positions from junior to C-suite level. Learn more about our unrivalled services.
Top Compliance jobs in demand
Financial Crime Compliance
Professionals in financial crime compliance will prevent instances such as money laundering, fraud, and bribery occurrence. They will support banks in making sure transactions are compliant with internal and external regulatory requirements.
More recently, there has been a growth in Cryptocurrency and Fintech as the Finance industry embraces technology transformation, including a further demand in compliance knowledge whilst Cryptocurrency regulations become more secure.
Many organisations are desirably hiring financial crime compliance professionals with a law enforcement background, such as working in the police or ICAC. This experience comes as an advantage in regulatory knowledge as well as an analytical mindset.
Regulatory Compliance
In Regulatory Compliance, professionals will work with banks, firms or businesses, ensuring they are compliance with regulatory requirements such as HKMA and SFC. They may implement compliance processes and procedures, whilst liaising with regulators on requests or coordinating on-site/off-site examinations.
Acting as subject matter experts and providing a personalised service, regulatory compliance individuals must be well-versed with regulatory requirements with an understanding of specific requirements for each business they work with.
Similar to financial crime, Cryptocurrency and Fintech are in high demand, so knowledge in these areas comes at an advantage, whilst regulations become more secure and more firms obtain licenses.
Top Risk jobs in demand
Credit Risk
A credit risk process includes an in-depth analysis and assessment on a client's credit or financial situation in the approval of a loan request. Following this, a credit risk will be proposed to management. Professionals will be responsibilities for overseeing pre-trade and post-trade compliance.
Banks in investments, to retail and commercial are seeking more assistance from credit risk professionals to monitor activities and provide expert guidance. This comes with importance, whilst banks process more transactions overtime, and they become more complex.
Technology Risk
In the banking industry, we have seen a huge growth in technology in the past few years. For instance, there has been an increase in online banking, automation and technical documentation. Therefore, technology risk has also increased such as cybercrime and data breaches. It’s more important than ever for banks to identify their technology risks and implement suitable controls or procedures with the right individuals.
Professionals in this space must have technical knowledge and understanding in cyber security, to guide stakeholders in identifying areas of risk and provides guidelines for improvement. They must have effective communication skills, liaising to both non-technical and technical stakeholders. Qualifications in cybersecurity isn’t essential, but advantageous.
Climate Risk
New regulatory requirements in environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards in the past few years have caused companies, banks, and firms to change their frameworks to align with these external regulations. Furthermore, there is a necessity to raise internal awareness on ESG topics. As a fairly new topic to risk management, climate risk professionals are playing a critical role in assisting organisations in changing their policies, support sustainability objectives as well as managing business change.
Top tips for a career in Audit, Risk & Compliance
Expert advice from, Associate Director, Alfred Chan
Highlight the impact you have made in your career history
Whether it is on your CV, LinkedIn profile or cover letter, having an effective career history is important in demonstrating your valuable experience. Hiring Managers want to know what impact you’ve made and how you may have strengthened your skillset. If you find writing about your career history difficult, keep asking yourself – “is what I’m writing down relevant to future Hiring Managers?”
Qualifications make all the difference
In Audit, Risk and Compliance, there are various qualifications that Hiring Managers may be looking for and well vary across what area of expertise you would like to go into. For example, compliance qualifications may include CAMS or ACAMs, but more specific qualifications could be FCC for financial crime risk, or CISSP or CISA for technology risk professionals.
Stakeholder management skills
Governance positions require great communication skills, as these roles will often converse across various internal parties, clients, and stakeholders. Having great stakeholder management skills is a key requirement for many Hiring Managers, as individuals will need to manage stakeholders in guiding them through requirements, compliance processes and objectives. Some Hiring Managers may even ask about how you handle stakeholders, and how you have overcome challenges within this.