Verity journal

To ensure an ethical workforce for the financial industry, our local authorities have been strengthening employee screening policies, practices and disclosures.

As a financial institution’s integrity are only as sound as those within the organisation, there has been great emphasis within government bodies and Bank Negara’s policies for organizations to properly identify, hire and manage competent employees before and during the employment stage, which emphasises on the need for background screenings.

For Malaysia, The Fit & Proper Criteria and The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Framework have been created to make organizations more accountable, especially financial institutions like banking institutions, Islamic banking institutions, insurers, Takaful operators and holding companies.

In Singapore,  the Monetary Authority of Singapore recently issued a consultation paper, proposing to introduce a new set of Guidelines on Individual Accountability and Conduct to address growing incidents of misconduct and egregious risk-taking in the financial industry both globally and in Singapore.

So, as Malaysian and Singaporean organizations gear up to conduct more background screenings. Here’s what to expect:

While safety and security is a key buy-in factor for background screenings, there is also the factor of cost to think about. From our experience, a mishire can cost from 6 to 15 times a person’s base salary. The higher the ranking of a mishire, the higher the risks. With background screening, this risk is hugely reduced.

Background screenings can provide a lot of benefits to organizations as it helps ensure better-quality hires, improve security and safety in the workplace, lower turnover rates and fulfills regulatory compliance.

Would you like to know more about background screenings and the local regulations? Check out our previous articles here or stay tuned to www.verityintel.com for future updates.