Building an effective financial crime workforce is a critical component for every financial organisation.  However, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to determining what the ideal team looks like in terms of structure and people. The Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) or Head of Compliance (HoC) is a key role and will require an understanding of what financial crime is and how if manifests, as well as how to build an appropriate firm-specific financial crime framework. Within the framework your operational analysts are the grassroots of the financial crime team, yet often there is little structured thinking of what constitutes the right skill set for this role. 

When building and scaling your team you’ll probably aim for a mix of experience and talent across different aspects of the industry and financial crime ecosystem. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that often the right talent for analyst roles may not be in the obvious and usual places. Embracing a diverse pool of candidates for the cornerstone of your operational activities will broaden the insights and outputs that you achieve from these teams.