The Imperative need for a contingent workforce in financial crime compliance teams in the UK
The rise of financial crimes, including money laundering, fraud, and terrorist financing, poses significant challenges to the stability and integrity of the global financial system. To combat these threats effectively, financial institutions in the United Kingdom are increasingly recognising the need to bolster their compliance efforts. One powerful solution that has appeared in recent years is the integration of a contingent workforce within financial crime compliance teams. This blog aims to highlight the vital role played by contingent workers in enhancing the capabilities of these teams and ensuring robust regulatory adherence and risk mitigation.
Evolving financial crime landscape
The United Kingdom, as a leading global financial hub, faces constant pressure to strengthen its financial crime prevention mechanisms. Criminals are becoming more sophisticated, exploiting technological advancements and complex global networks. Consequently, financial institutions must be proactive in adopting measures that keep pace with evolving criminal tactics.
Tackling challenges faced by compliance teams
Financial crime compliance teams are at the forefront of combating illicit activities within financial institutions. However, these teams often face a range of challenges, including:
- Resource Constraints: Traditional compliance teams can struggle to keep up with ever-increasing workloads, resulting in delayed or inadequate risk assessments, investigations, and reporting.
- Specialised Expertise: The complexity of financial crime requires a diverse skill set that may not always be available within existing teams. Skills such as data analysis, forensic accounting, and regulatory knowledge are crucial for effective compliance, but difficult to find in a single individual.
- Rapid Response: The need for swift action in finding and responding to suspicious activities requires agility and flexibility, which can be hindered by bureaucratic processes and staffing limitations.
Enhancing operational efficiency
Financial crime compliance requires a comprehensive and proactive approach, involving a range of activities such as risk assessments, transaction monitoring, due diligence, and reporting. Engaging contingent workers with specialised skills and experience in these areas can significantly enhance the operational efficiency of compliance teams. They bring valuable insights, streamlined processes, and industry best practices, enabling organisations to achieve greater accuracy, effectiveness, and timeliness in their compliance efforts. Moreover, contingent workers often have a fresh perspective, questioning existing practices and suggesting innovative solutions to enhance overall operational effectiveness.
Addressing the growing demand for expertise
The landscape of financial crime is ever-changing, with criminals continually devising new techniques and exploiting vulnerabilities. To effectively combat this evolving threat, compliance teams need specialised skills and knowledge. However, recruiting permanent employees with niche expertise can be time-consuming and costly. By using a contingent workforce, organisations can tap into a vast pool of experienced professionals who possess the requisite skills in financial crime prevention, anti-money laundering (AML), fraud detection, and other critical areas. These experts bring fresh insights and best practices to the table, fortifying the compliance efforts of organisations.
Cost efficiency and risk mitigation
Building and maintaining an internal team of specialised financial crime compliance professionals can be a significant financial burden. Permanent employees come with overhead costs such as salaries, benefits, training, and infrastructure. On the other hand, contingent workers are typically engaged on a project or contract basis, reducing long-term financial commitments, and mitigating the risks associated with employee turnover. By leveraging a contingent workforce, organisations can achieve cost efficiency without compromising the quality and effectiveness of their financial crime compliance efforts.
Role of contingent workforce
A contingent workforce, comprising skilled professionals engaged on a temporary or contract basis, can address the challenges faced by financial crime compliance teams.
Contingent workers supply the flexibility to scale up or down quickly based on the workload and regulatory demands. This ensures that compliance teams can adapt swiftly to changing circumstances, preventing bottlenecks, and reducing the risk of non-compliance. By engaging contingent workers with specific skills and experience in financial crime compliance, institutions can tap into a wider talent pool. This enables access to specialised knowledge, advanced analytics capabilities, and diverse perspectives, augmenting the effectiveness of compliance programs.
Contingent workers bring fresh insights, methodologies, and best practices from their prior experiences in different organisations. This infusion of external knowledge can enhance process efficiency, streamline workflows, and ease the implementation of innovative technologies in compliance operations.
Why choose Momenta?
In an era marked by evolving financial crime threats, organisations in the UK cannot afford to overlook the significance of a contingent workforce for their financial crime compliance teams. The contingent workforce provides access to specialised expertise, flexibility, and scalability, enabling compliance teams to effectively combat financial crime while perfecting operational efficiency and managing costs.
Firms should act quickly to set up new hiring methods that accommodate the shifting personnel scenario, which includes more financial crime, increased regulatory demand, and additional BAU work as a result of the pandemic’s delays. Contingent staff offer key skills and a bigger pool of talent which allow for BAU to resume, but also allow for outsourced teams to be set up quickly to complete added work demands being placed on firms.
Momenta have worked with multiple companies across industries globally, successfully building their contingent workforce.
