FInancial Crime Apprentice Review

In this apprenticeship we are financial crime analysts - this means that we cover various roles within our scheme. We will hold 4-5 roles throughout our scheme, which are all in financial crime. These roles are mostly operational and involve working individual cases trying to assess money laundering and terrorist financing issues.

Yes - before this apprenticeship started I had no knowledge of financial crime. However through our roles we keep gaining a greater understanding of money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions issues in a theoretical and practical way. The theory is covered through the completion of ICA certificates whilst the practical knowledge is gained through our job roles.

I enjoy the variety of roles that we are able to do. This gives us a lot of good experience that a lot of professionals do not have. This is the main strength of the programme. Additionally completing the ICA certificates is enjoyable and good for us as employees. However there is not much opportunity to work in different financial crime roles and we do not have any flexibility in this respect.

The organisation has been lacking - for the whole scheme there was previously 3 managers, and since the beginning of the year there has only been 2 managers. They are trying to cover the work that three people previously did and the organisation has been lacking since this change. The structure is also not certain and plans often change.

We receive a lot of support from our employer. We have a lot of time to complete the work for the apprenticeship scheme and also we have ample time to complete our ICA certificates. We are able to talk to our managers and the apprenticeship provider if we need any support.

We receive a lot of support. We have one to one meetings every five weeks, and our contact is always available to be contacted. They keep up to date with what we are up to and the challenges we face. The level of support from BPP is very good and they are always happy to help.

I do not feel it helps me perform a lot better in my role. There is not a lot of overlap with the work we do - except work on behaviours which would obviously be applicable to anything. However I do not feel that my apprenticeship qualification is helping me perform tangibly better in my day to day role.

I do get involved in sports that are organised within the organisation. This is with people that I have worked with as part of my day to day role so in that sense it is good exposure to them and an opportunity to network. One social event has occurred in the last year that was a chance to network.

Yes

They are a famous bank and working here is a good opportunity to gain exposure to a variety of roles within financial crime. The fact that they pay for the ICA certificate is very good as that is a qualification that financial crime professionals benefit a lot from. The size of the bank means that there is a variety of work.

Do research beforehand - for this scheme you should know about the basics of banking, financial crime and anti money laundering to apply. This is because you should know if it is an area you want to get into as the scheme is purely financial crime based. However as with all jobs, show your enthusiasm throughout the application process and try to be yourself as much as possible.