I'm Robert, I Comply, Or Die Trying.......(6)

The final installment on careers in the Trust business: the Compliance/Risk/AML/KYC person.

It is unfair to group all these functions into one, but in the smaller organisations, 1 person could be wearing the many hats. Of course in the big financial institutions, there could be literally teams of people, locally, regionally and globally that separately oversee these functions, and countless sub-specialties.

It used to be Compliance/Risk and especially AML and KYC was a strictly banking or brokerage position. Outside of those financial institutions, no one really had one. Nowadays, any business that remotely touches money has to have one. Even Christie's, the auction house has a team! As more regulations and laws come into play, these fields has boomed and demand has greatly outpaced supply.

It used to be that you would take someone with relevant trust skills and turn them into Risk people. Perhaps a little cruel, but that meant the "ugly Betty's" and "techy geeks" ended up with the job. People that had little or no potential for front-line or RM work, often socially challenged and advancement denied individuals in the organisation were chosen. Being named Risk Officer was more punishment than promotion. On the plus side, these people often did know the business and knew it very well. How well they were able absorb risk principles and put them into practice was the main challenge.

Now, we have formally risk-trained people that have no idea about the trust business coming into play. We have regulatory lawyers, internal and external auditors and simply "risk management people" filling the roles. While they may have a much better understanding of general legal and regulatory issues, they also have a maddening, if not crippling, lack of knowledge of the trust/wealth/offshore world. We are at least another generation or two away from having truly competent and knowledgeable trust risk people. Most of these people don't have a clue as to what risk is in our industry. All they know are check-lists and forms. If it isn't red-flagged by those screens then all's fine. If it is red-flagged, then nothing lesser than CEO or Board sign-off will get you a reprieve. They younger and less-experienced they are, the more textbook brain-washed they are. There is absolutely no good reason for "Hold Mail". Bearer share companies are inherently evil. Why isn't the Settlor the UBO? LOL!

So if your career in stuck in low gear and you know a thing or two about trusts, PICs and bank accounts, and you have the stomach to read a ton of Regs and can put the 2 together, you could have a bright future in Risk. Of course, you must love structure, lists, menus, things in logical steps and order in everything. Being OCD really helps.

You need to be the type of person who likes meddling and dwells on doom-n-gloom. You need to constantly identify (and convince management) that there is a problem in current procedures or documentation in order to create work for yourself and prove you're a valuable asset. If all's well then you're not doing your job. The sky has to be falling somewhere in the business.

You need to be able to write clearly as you will be judged on the procedures and guidelines you produce. The less you are able to produce something readily understandable, the sooner you will be unemployed. Note that it doesn't need to be technically sound, effective or efficient, just comprehensible. You can re-visit, re-do, refine anything as your next project. Everything is a work-in-progress and you must take satisfaction on the the process and not any particular milestone.

You need to be able to take criticism as no one will agree with your draft procedure or guidelines (or at least the first 20 drafts anyway). People will find a fault with everything you propose. You intelligence, or lack thereof, will often be questioned, both privately and publicly. People do not like change and all you're about is change.

What I wrote about in-house trust counsel applies to you to (http://trustprofessioninasia.blogspot.com/2010/06/im-helen-i-possibly-maybe-like-my-job5.html). You are often seen as an impediment to doing business and you will not have many friends.

You are the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Harness your powers and you could make-or-break billion dollar transactions and shape the direction and things your company is doing. You have the power to help stamp out crime and corruption and make the world a better place. Until then, back to your little corner of the office and read the stacks of Reg's. that are piling up.