Our qualifications help compliance professionals develop relevant knowledge and best practice for operating within the fields of governance, risk and compliance, financial crime prevention and anti money laundering (AML). Awarded in conjunction with the Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, you can be assured that you are studying for a worthwhile qualification that is the benchmark of excellence.
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Technology is set to have an impact on the way in which compliance professionals work. In a future defined by VUCA, what can compliance professionals do to ensure that they have the skills to prepare for the changes?....More
A proven and effective method of preventing terrorism is disrupting the financial networks used to fund it. This has been known to organisations, regulators and governments for some time now.
Download your free copy of Dun & Bradstreet's latest e-book ‘Busting The Myths That Make Third-Party Risk Management More Painful’ published in association with ICA....More
Before attending an interview, go through the job description in more detail. This will give you an understanding of what the hiring manager is looking for.
A brief comparison of the key outputs from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation's (OFSI) annual reports....More
Art and antiquities looting was ISIS’s second highest source of income at the terror group’s height. Unique and rare objects from the world’s oldest civilisations were flogged to Europe and North America to raise funds for its activities. The regulatory response from the EU and the art industry has been swift – but is it enough?
Compliance professionals employed in SRA-authorised law firms should be busy preparing to support their colleagues to make a safe and appropriate transition.....More
Artificial intelligence (AI) is today being adopted across all sectors which will require us to adapt and obtain new skills. People will continue to be needed, but the types of jobs that they do will change.
It is often said that the only constant in life is change, and that certainly rings true for the current regulatory climate. The global nature of financial crime means that all regulators, and firms operating in the regulated sector, must be quick to respond to threats.....More
Malcolm Wright, Chief Compliance Officer, Diginex, and keynote speaker at ICA’s 2nd APAC Conference, discusses the latest trends and challenges in virtual banking and how it’s impacting the skills and competencies of compliance professionals.
Broadgate Search sat down with Pekka Dare, Director of Training Education and Development at ICA, to uncover various case studies in the financial sector.....More
‘Vulnerable Customers’ is not a topic you can avoid if you are a compliance professional in the retail sector. While the UK may be leading in the implementation of new requirements, many other jurisdictions are incorporating or considering the principles involved. These principles are pretty much incontrovertible and so there is inevitable pressure and momentum behind development of this area.
Here at ICA, we are home to an array of rich and diverse compliance backgrounds and, as such, everyone has a story to tell. ICA’s R&D managers and tutors relay their stories, sharing valuable insight regarding careers in compliance. Whether you are a senior compliance officer or someone looking to enter the sector, this will be an interesting and beneficial read.....More
Upon completion of an ICA qualification, you may find yourself wondering what comes next and how you can make the most of your new qualification. Here we discuss the nine key steps to maximise the potential for professional success that your ICA qualification offers.
There’s a whole world of professional paths out there. Yet a lot of kids seem to dream of the same options: ‘when I grow up I want to be a vet, doctor, firefighter, police officer’. These are all admirable options, but not many say ‘I want to work in compliance’. Not yet, anyway.....More
Move over Bitcoin and Blockchain – there’s a new raft of terminology to come to terms with in the form of virtual assets, crypto-derivatives and Libra. Adding to the mix the recent announcement on virtual assets from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), it’s been a busy few weeks for anyone keeping an eye on the virtual world. In this Insight piece we will be looking at four key updates from recent weeks.
Blockchain is capturing the imagination of the financial services for its potential to reduce risk and decrease costs. It’s easy to consider blockchain as a unicorn – elusive, never seen and no one seems to quite know its capabilities. Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT), but what exactly is blockchain and DLT? And how can they be used by mainstream companies?....More
Hands up if you’ve ever bought a fake pair of sunglasses or fake handbag? Or if you know someone that has? Maybe a friend of a friend has sold you a copy of a film on DVD?
Fresh legislative initiatives and large scandals are thrusting whistleblowing on to the corporate agenda. However, how companies approach internal whistleblowing arrangements varies significantly across Europe. This is according to the Whistleblowing Report 2019 published by the University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur in Switzerland and EQS Group.....More
$2 trillion – that’s the amount of illicit funds estimated to be laundered through financial institutions annually. Worse, financial crime appears to be increasing (see the latest from Insight for the reasons behind the rise). In response, Europol estimate that banks globally are spending $260 billion each year in financial crime defences to combat the issue.
At the recent City Week International Financial Services Forum in London, one of the panel sessions focused on the evolution of financial crime, and a statistic highlighted during the session struck a chord with me.....More
Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing and most widespread criminal activities in the world.
Money laundering scandals have been all over the news recently, with banks such as Danske and Swedbank....More
On 8 May 2019, the Central Bank of Ireland found Campbell O’Connor & Company, a private client stockbrokers
Great strides forward have been made in the general awareness....More
'An investment in knowledge pays the best interest' - Benjamin Franklin....More
The Monetary Authority of Singapore details enforcement actions and key initiatives as it launches debut enforcement report.
Compliance culture, especially in financial services, is a really important element that can impact on the wider cultural challenges that a firm could face.....More
Take a moment to look beyond the turbulence of current affairs and traverse the terrain of a global anti-corruption trends monitor. What you will see, may surprise you.
It was announced that Standard Chartered has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to US regulators and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). What lessons can we learn from this?....More
“Just because you do not work in a multinational organisation does not mean that ICA is not suitable for you. I would say it is exactly the opposite. If you belong to a smaller organisation, it is likely you frequently miss the opportunity to
You have enrolled onto your new ICA training course, printed your training manual, and are now eager to start studying and learning immediately. This is how to get more out of your study journey in 6 easy steps....More
Whether you’re new to the industry or taking the next step in your career, it’s important to choose the best compliance training possible. We have put together the top benefits of studying for an ICA qualification & advancing your career.
When it comes to customer due diligence (CDD) - what challenges do AML professionals in financial institutions face?....More
Virtual currencies, cybercrime and Trumponomics, to name just a few, present interesting dilemmas: to what extent should we be conversant in these areas in order to fully understand the financial crime risks associated with them?
Ten years ago, the Middle East was a different place to the one that we see today. You only have to look at a picture of the Dubai skyline in 2008 and compare it to the current one to appreciate the aesthetic changes that have taken place. But it has not only changed aesthetically: the regulatory progress in the region’s financial sector has been equally discernable.....More
When correctly motivated, employees remain honest and become the most effective frontline defence against the fraudster. Employees become motivated when they believe that:
This is the question we get asked the most. With ICA Briefing Sessions in full swing at the moment, it seemed like it was worth addressing. So what do we tell you? Essentially, there are two main pieces of advice we normally focuse on when discussing ICA qualifications....More
Have you ever wondered which skills and attributes are useful when working in anti money laundering (AML)? If you currently work in AML, have you considered how your own skills measure up? Here’s a quick look at some of the skills and attributes that a compliance professional may need
The new Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has been released and you can see the results here. The Index is used in many financial crime models and is a highly regarded tool for geographic risk insight.....More
Mutual evaluations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) are big news within the anti money laundering (AML) community; its peer reviews provide insight into the AML framework of a country, the key risks that it faces and how those risks are managed.
Have you ever wondered which skills and attributes are useful when working in anti money laundering (AML)? If you currently work in AML, have you considered how your own skills measure up? Here’s a quick look at some of the skills and attributes that an AML professional may need....More
Despite significant investment in compliance, we still see incidents where things go wrong. In many cases the root cause is the wrong culture and values. How do you drive the right culture across your organisation? How do you ensure everyone is accountable for compliance matters? Below we provide some tips to help support a successful compliance ‘change programme’.
US politics inevitably tends to attract greater scrutiny than anywhere else in the Americas. Regrettably, this often obscures that which is unfolding in the southern half of the continent, where very interesting – often odd, sometimes distressing – events are taking place. Last year was a case in point.....More
As Father Christmas prepares his list of who has been naughty or nice, I thought it would be interesting to take look at enforcement action in 2018 from around the world and consider some New Year’s resolutions that compliance professionals may want to make in 2019.
Christmas – the season of gifts and giving. Nobody needs reminding that we already hurtling our way full speed towards the Big Day, but for businesses it is the time of year when a useful reminder on the dangers of bribery is required.....More
I am a Senior Compliance professional with extensive skills, knowledge and expertise of the regulatory landscape and systems and controls, gained through 17+ years’ experience within the financial services industry.
I’m Paul Byrne, MICA and Compliance Manager at RA International in Dubai. I’m also an ICA alumni having studied the ICA International Diploma in Compliance and graduating with a Merit. I’ve been a member of the ICA since 15 September 2015.....More
I’ve worked in financial services for 30 years across a range of roles in front office and support functions, leading sizeable teams with multiple jurisdiction responsibilities. I joined the ICA two years ago as a Fellow after graduating with a Post Graduate Diploma in Governance, Risk & Compliance. I’m also a member of the ICA Technical Advisory Board.
Carlos Ghosn has his own comic book, The True Story of Carlos Ghosn. It ran as a strip in the manga Big Comic Superior in Japan in 2001, before being published as a book the following year. In a country obsessed with comic books, Ghosn having his own should give you an idea of the reverence in which he is held for reviving the ailing carmaker Nissan after his arrival in 1999.....More
I’ve worked in financial services for 30 years across a range of roles in front office and support functions, leading sizeable teams with multiple jurisdiction responsibilities. I joined the ICA two years ago as a Fellow after graduating with a Post Graduate Diploma in Governance, Risk & Compliance. I’m also a member of the ICA Technical Advisory Board.
Guy Fawkes Night celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot to kill King James I at the Palace of Westminster on November 5, 1605. There’s something modern, and therefore something we recognise, in the Gunpower Plot: it featured a small group of fanatics, whose plan was wildly ambitious, violent, and spectacular in its execution....More
If I’d been asked earlier in my working life to consider a career in compliance, I might have turned my nose up on the grounds that I was trying to become one of those ‘creative types’, unrestricted by rules. Fast forward several years and here I am in 2018, a fairly new entrant into the governance, risk and compliance (GRC) profession.
The CMA and the ICA are collaborating to ensure that together we can #StopCartels....More
At International Compliance Training we try always to underline the virtues of learning. To show you that we practice what we preach, I want to share my own experience as a student over the last twelve months.
I’m Paul Byrne, MICA and Compliance Manager at RA International in Dubai. I’m also an ICA alumni having studied the ICA International Diploma in Compliance and graduating with a Merit. I’ve been a member of the ICA since 15 September 2015.....More
Anastasia Savvateeva is a former compliance officer for the Compliance & Risk Management department with KPMG France, and now Anti-Financial Crime & AML Compliance Officer for Deutsche Bank France. Originally from the Ukraine, she has been living in Paris for 8 years having grew up and studied in Moscow.....More
In August this year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a new report that aims to raise awareness and provide an updated and more precise understanding of the financial flows related to human trafficking.
Live events, done well, can be unparalleled for learning and professional growth. So who is speaking at the Big Compliance Conversation: Singapore Conference?....More
When asked to consider IWT, many people would think of ivory and tiger skins; but it is so much more than that. IWT can be broadly defined as ‘any action which contravenes current legislation (nationally or internationally) governing the protection of animals and plants’ (NPCC).
October 10 is World Mental Health Day. One of the themes this year is ‘mental health in a changing world’.....More
As the Global Head of Financial Crime Risk Screening for AML, counter terrorist financing, PEPs and adverse media at HSBC in London, James Leake knows a thing or two about compliance. Let's meet James and take on board his sage advice.
Inconsistent laws, political tension and ambiguous banking regulation. What next?
As compliance professionals are becoming increasingly integral advisors to the business, to be competent and impactful in your role ‘influencing’ is a must have skill. But where do you start?....More
Increased regulatory expectations, rising standards and best practice now makes it clear that rapidly clicking through a computer based training course does not mean people have been given the right skills to tackle the complex issues facing regulated firms today.....More
Collecting all the information required to manage your compliance programme is not only time consuming but can be costly. So, how exactly do we propose to make this less painful?....More
Over the last decade the general public has woken up to the environmental issues affecting the planet. Concerted global efforts are now in place to reduce harm caused by pollution and to cut back on waste. The cost of cleaning up the damage already inflicted is now a central focus of national governments. Below, we look at the cost of financial crime and the incredible impact its prevention could have.
Integrity is hard to pin down. We know that some people have it and some people don’t, but in terms of one’s character, true integrity, particularly in adults, is fixed.....More
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has recently produced a report looking at the ways in which individuals and organisations, known as professional money launderers (PMLs), are charging fees or commission for providing a money laundering service to criminals.
'It is better to know how to learn than to know’ – Dr Seuss.....More
The betting and gaming sector has been the recipient of a number of financial penalties over the last eighteen months for a lack of compliance with statutory and regulatory measures....More
David Jackman highlights the challenges associated with efforts to measure whether the SMCR is working
The landscape of financial crime risk has been transformed in recent years with ever-increasing lapses in the anti-money laundering (AML) risk controls of global financial institutions.....More
The FATF’s International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) identified four key areas of concern in respect of Pakistan; can these be resolved?
French firm Lafarge, a major producer of cement, construction aggregates and concrete, is the subject of a formal investigation by French authorities over allegations of terrorist financing, violating international sanctions and committing crimes against humanity.....More
The £896,100 fine recently imposed on Canara Bank by the FCA is a useful example of the thinking behind penalties issued by the UK regulator.
A recent Guardian article has found the cashless approach to be increasingly popular, particularly with businesses in the food and drink sector it seems. Where does that leave pounds, shilling and pence?
In an environment that changes continually, it’s important to have the right toolkit to perform your duties confidently and competently. As a result of this ever-changing environment, qualifications become an essential part of your career trajectory.....More
The World Cup has got off to an explosive, entertaining start. We follow up our coverage of each team’s first fixture with Part 2 of our World Cup of Corruption, looking at each nation’s ranking on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index. Teams included in Part 2 include Sweden, Senegal, South Korea, Panama, Poland and Japan.
Football itself – and in particular FIFA – has been beset by corruption problems over the last decade. In light of this we thought we would consider each fixture of the tournament through the lens of corruption.
Have you ever wondered which skills and attributes are useful when working in compliance? If you currently work in compliance, have you considered how your own skills measure up?....More
Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, will continue to challenge the way in which we conduct financial transactions - and ultimately how we tackle the issue of money laundering risk.
In 2015, an agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was drawn up in which Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of UN, US and EU sanctions.
In this article, Keeley Fitzsimmons, Training & Development Manager at Broadgate Search, provides an insightful overview of what employers are looking for from Compliance teams.....More
An amendment to the Sanctions and Anti Money Laundering Bill was approved by the British government in May. The headline news from the amendment was that from 2020 British Overseas Territories (BOT) will be obliged to publish the beneficial owner(s) of all registered companies.
FATF’s mutual evaluation in Hong Kong later this year will be its first evaluation in the territory since 2007.....More
Here’s an insight into some of the changes put forward in this fifth and latest update.....More
What is trade finance and is it really as high-risk as it is often perceived?
We get asked a lot of questions about ICA qualifications. That makes sense given our role as a training provider. The questions range from ‘will this qualification land me a new role?’ to ‘what course is right for me?’. While we are always happy to have a chat about options and suitability, and make recommendations, fundamentally the qualification you select has to be your decision.
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