Singapore financial firms under pressure to enhance crime mitigation

They're raising salaries for compliance roles by up to 15%.

Demand for compliance staff in Singapore has continued to increase as banks and other financial institutions in the area remain under pressure to improve their detection of financial crime says Astbury Marsden, a leading recruitment firm.

Astbury Marsden says that the growth in demand has seen salaries for financial crime compliance roles increase by an average 6-10% in the last 12 months. In some cases salaries for niche roles such as AML Transaction Monitoring, Sanctions and PEP Screening have risen by an average 15% over the same period.

A recent report from the Financial Action Taskforce (FAT), said that banks and other financial institutions in Singapore needed to step up their defences against financial crime and continue to invest in their compliance functions. The report emphasised the need for institutions to improve their capabilities at dealing with larger, more complex cases of financial crime.

The report highlighted recent examples such as the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia- which saw the Singapore regulator withdraw Falcon Private Bank’s banking licence and fine UBS and DBS. The recent scandal emphasised the need for financial institutions in Singapore to increase their protection against financial crime.

Astbury Marsden adds that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has already been making steps to tighten regulations in order to reduce the risk of financial crime.

Astbury Marsden explains that compliance staff in Singapore have also benefited from the global trend of increased regulation in the financial services sector following the financial crisis.

In order to deal with the increase in demand for compliance professionals, the government in Singapore have introduced professional conversion programmes (PCP), which will allow professionals to expand their job role into more in demand areas such as compliance, and make the most of the increase in salary for these sought after positions.

Kate Silaeva, Risk & Compliance Manager at Astbury Marsden comments: “Financial crime is now firmly at the top of the agenda for financial institutions across the world - and Singapore is no exception.”

“The introduction of new regulations has caused a steady increase of compliance staff in Singapore’s banks and financial institutions as they look to grow their compliance functions, and with demand increasing, so too are the salaries for these roles.”

“The introduction of PCP’s by the Singaporean government has meant that financial services professionals can benefit from salary increases by reskilling for more in demand areas.”

“Not only is financial crime increasing, but it is also getting more complex and therefore firms are looking to recruit compliance, risk and technology professionals with a range of expertise and backgrounds.”