Financial compliance professionals in short supply
Hong Kong faces a chronic shortage of financial compliance professionals even after a sharp surge in hiring in the wake of a global drive to tighten tax and regulatory compliance rules.
“Globally, regulators are stepping up their investigations and enforcement activity, so companies and banks are enhancing their compliance regimes to meet this heightened scrutiny,” Kim Nemirow, a Hong Kong-based lawyer at Ropes & Gray, an international law firm, said. “Our Hong Kong office has four partners with deep experience in investigations. One year ago, we had one partner.”
Only 50 investigators are assigned to the police anti-money-laundering unit that faced a record deluge of more than 37,000 potential cases last year. In the past three years, the number of suspicious transaction reports received by the unit has increased more than 80 per cent - from 20,287 reports in 2011 to 37,188 in 2014.
Experis, the executive search arm of Manpower Group, says compliance staff levels in the city have increased 15 to 25 per cent in the past year. There has also been a jump in salary – staff with the right background and qualifications can easily command 25 to 35 per cent pay rises when changing jobs and retention bonuses to stay, Experis managing partner Denise Lim Wan Chee said.
