Post pandemic market landscape leaves a shortage of financial crime skills – How can the contingent workforce combat this?
What and why is there a talent and skills shortage?
Staff shortages brought on by Covid are crippling the Australian economy, with banking, financial services, and professional services firms in dire need of skilled talent.
In the Banking and Financial Services Sector, there is still a shortage of risk and compliance experts, particularly those with expertise in financial crime compliance. It has never been more important to hire a trained team of compliance experts, forensic investigators, and lawyers in the complex, highly regulated, international financial system navigating the wave of FinTech and Cryptocurrencies.
Even though there has always been a strong need for these kinds of roles, the employment market of today has made it much more competitive to find the right talent, especially with the talent shortages seen in Australia over the last few months. The potential for future implementation of AML Tranche 2 legislation across multiple new industries within the Australian market further compounds the urgency of this issue
Overwhelming regulatory and policy demands from increased AML/CTF requirements and heightened cyber threats have meant that additional staff support was and is very much needed. Firms want more flexibility in their talent investments, but they’re also dealing with a scarcity of specialised talents. As a result, new hiring models are including contingent talent as part of new hiring strategies, to help in areas of weakness or areas where they do not have enough in-house capacity to cope with the additional demands.
Therefore, the importance of contingent workforces cannot be overstated.
Preparing for future threats with the correct talent
When compared to today, the financial crime fighter of the future will possess a wider range of skills and be an expert in anti-money laundering, fraud, and cyber security.
In most companies, there are obligations related to cybersecurity, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery and corruption, and fraud. Writing policies and procedures, interpreting laws or regulations, identifying risks associated with products and services, conducting investigations, and interacting with regulators are all common actions that are shared by all these capabilities, even though each one of them calls for a unique set of technical skills.
The talent needed to complete these jobs can be applied to other competencies, especially when they are combined with upskilling and the appropriate team structures to close the technical skills gap.
As a result of growing financial crime, key talent will be needed to support new detection landscapes. Banks will need to establish “effective” compliance teams that provide investigators with “extremely useful” and “relevant” intelligence skills on demand.
It is clear to see that fighting financial crime will require additional skilled resource on demand and plentiful–which is why the future of resilient financial crime fighting will rely on the contingent workforce.
Firms should act quickly to establish new hiring methods that accommodate the shifting personnel scenario, which includes more financial crime, increased regulatory demand, and additional BAU work because of the pandemic’s delays.
The traditional recruitment procedure is slow in a fast-paced market. Recruiting good, competent people can take months, which is why there is such a high demand for skilled compliance contingent professionals in 2022, and this is expected to rise in 2023. 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 scaled quickly to complete additional work demands being placed on firms
With the latest trends in hiring and retaining employees, more companies are turning to the contingency model to help them deliver on crucial projects, deal with surges in work, and get back to business as usual. It addresses the significant difficulty of staffing in a timely and cost-effective manner without the need for lengthy interviews or onboarding, as well as enabling a rapid response for circumstances that a large permanent team would make impractical.
Specialists in contingent resource
For 30 years Momenta have been connecting professionals and delivering talent in highly regulated industries by building an ecosystem of leading skilled contingent professionals globally, providing a gateway to talent in the Banking, Financial Services, Legal, Technology, Training & Development and Arts & Antiquities sectors.
We’re building the global workforce of the future, through helping our client’s source and secure vetted skilled contingent professionals, on demand, across geographies to meet their immediate needs. Our cost-effective solutions enable businesses to remain competitive without compromising their brand and reputation, ensuring their skill gaps are met and they can respond to fast changing market conditions.
