financial crime apprentice Review

I am a financial crime apprentice and my role is to protect the bank and our customers from financial crime including money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery and corruption. Throughout the programme we get trained in a variety of different areas across financial crime as well as attending workshops and other events to increase our knowledge of the industry. Whilst on the apprenticeship we study for 2 qualifications.

Since starting the apprenticeship I have developed my independent study skills as well as my time management skills, having to balance time between working and studying. I have learnt a lot about professionalism and how to conduct myself in a working environment, including a particular focus on developing my own personal brand. Taking part in team building days and community fundraising has also developed my people skills. I have learnt that there is always more to learn and how to get the most from opportunities.

I enjoy the variety involved in my apprenticeship programme. In any 1 week, I spend 3 days working and 2 days studying or developing my professional skills through a variety of different projects. I find the industry really exciting and always want to extend my knowledge wherever I can. Santander is a great company to work for and since joining them I have always felt supported, respected and challenged to achieve all I possibly can.

I feel Santander really values its employees and wants the best from them. My manager knows me well as an individual and always acknowledges my work and contributions. We have a variety of different recognition schemes from informal team recognitions such as Apprentice of the week to Star Me Up recognitions which anyone in the business can send to each other and can recommend monetary rewards to be given.

My programme has good structure both in the short term and long term. We have a good day to day structure involving work and study days each week. In the long term, we have an apprenticeship learning plan which provides us with events, deadlines and workshops on a schedule for almost our entire apprenticeship so we always know what is coming up next and what we can work towards.

BPP are supportive to us by providing a coach who we have 121 meetings with once every 5 weeks. Between meetings, we record reflection documents which we submit to BPP so that our coach can see what we have been doing before the meeting. BPP also provide missions to help us achieve the required government skills and behaviours to succeed in our apprenticeship.

Santander are very supportive in making sure we have sufficient time and resources to carry out tasks as well as recognising individual needs and accommodating these.

My salary far exceeds the average salary for an apprenticeship and this helps to make us feel valued by the business. Earning a generous full time wage allows me to save up each month while on the apprenticeship, giving me a major head start over peers getting into debt at university. Santander also offers a large variety of rewards schemes and additional benefits.

We have already had some workshops and team building days outside of our usual working day. These helped us to connect as a team, develop skills, and create/maintain excitement around our role. We have also taken part in promotional events such as job fairs to advertise our apprenticeship scheme to others.

Yes

It's a good company to work for, I enjoy my job and feel valued and I know I have good opportunities to progress and build a career

Carry out plenty of research on the industry your apprenticeship is in as well as research on Santander as a business to understand what they have to offer you. Be well prepared for any assessment days and be sure to have examples of when you have demonstrated skills and behaviours releveant to the role in the past.