A day in the life of a Compliance Consultant

            I used to work for a bank. When people think about banking, they automatically think of teller’s jobs and other retail services jobs available in a bank’s branch.  So, when people knew I work for a bank, they always asked me questions about home mortgages and refinancing. It took me sometime to tell them I could not answer their questions and could not help them to refinance their home mortgages. Bankers are not just work for a bank’s branches in the banking industry. There are a lot of other back office jobs in a bank; such as, compliance consultants. Anyway, when I was working for a bank, I always curious about what the compliance consultants do in the bank.  Luckily, I got a chance to interview one recently.

            Brad* is a compliance consultant at a bank’s International Compliance Group. So, what do compliance consultants do? According to Brad, compliance consultant in different area has different responsibilities. Basically, it helps to keep people in the line of business get on the right track.  Brad said his job is a little complicated when it comes to define how his job works with the line of business.  He said he could be a lot of people’s boss and a lot of people can be his bosses too. That’s interesting, isn’t? He said when he gives guidelines to people in the line of business, he is the boss; because people need to follow exactly what he tell them to do, otherwise, the company will get in trouble.  And while people asking him to check out the laws and government regulation rules, people are his bosses; since his job is to help people to find out the answers about the law and regulations about doing business the right way.   He concluded that his job is like police officer of a bank, to make sure people in the line of business follow the laws and government regulations to do business.

             What degree is needed for a compliance consultant?  He indicated that a law degree will be very helpful but not necessarily.  He does not have a degree himself. He had attended some college and special trainings. He has more than 28 years working experience in the banking industry and that equivalent to a BA degree. The bank that Brad works for has a lot of training programs to let its qualified employees to enhance their knowledge and skills to better serve their jobs. 

            So, how’s a regular working day of a compliance consultant look like?  “Very busy,” Brad said.  Brad starts his day by checking emails and schedules of meetings. Meeting time is about 20% out of an eight to ten hours work day and it is roughly from two to six hours a day. Sometimes Brad will have back to back meetings the whole work day.  Depending on what time is left out, it’s Brad’s actual work time for answering people’s questions about customers, laws, and government regulations; customers’ questions about their programs; and for tasks that come from his bosses, work with auditors and respond to law and regulation inquiries from the line of business. Brad’s job needs to talk to people on the phone all the time. Sometimes is on conference calls, sometimes is on trainings for people. Brad also needs to travel around the world about 25% of his work.

            Brad said his job is very stressful because there are so many laws and regulations out there to follow. Laws and regulations become more and more strict every day,   and that makes their job very stressful.  Brad deals with his stress by cooking and playing music after work. Even though Brad’s job is so stressful, he loves his job. “I love to deal with people all over the world. My job allows me to communicate with people in London, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Mumbai, Chennai, etc…etc… I have learned all those languages in greetings and that’s a lot of fun. I also have fun meeting those good people around the world,” Brad said.  

            So, that’s that much about Brad’s job in a day.  He enjoys it very much. How about you? Would you like to have a job as compliance consultant?

*       Per my interviewee’s request, Brad is a makeup name!