Compliance salary boom underway at fund managers

Fund managers are paying better than superannuation funds when it comes to their compliance staff, finds Kaizen Recruitment, but this extra salary comes with greater requirements and qualifications.

The report provided a salary breakdown of compliance professionals working in the non-banking financial services sector, inclusive of superannuation and excluding bonuses.

At the top end, chief risk officers – who have upwards of 20 years’ experience – earn between $280,000 and $450,000. General managers and heads of risk and compliance – with 15–20 years’ experience – are reporting salaries of $220,000 to $340,000.

Risk and compliance senior managers – with 10–15 years’ experience – earn between $175,000 and $280,000. For risk and compliance managers with seven to nine years’ experience, they can expect between $155,000 and $185,000.

On the lower end of the scale, risk and compliance senior analysts report salaries of between $130,000 and $165,000. Finally, risk and compliance analysts earn between $90,000 and $140,000.

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Source: Kaizen Recruitment

Kaizen identified that fund management firms tend to pay more generously than their superannuation fund counterparts. However, this is becoming more competitive and they tend to seek higher qualifications than super funds.

The report wrote: “Fund managers have consistently looked to secure the most qualified candidates for the role, paying premium salaries and enticing bonuses both in short-term incentives and long-term incentives, but are now having to compete increasingly with the newly sophisticated super funds who have found deeper pockets through internalising their investment teams and sheer scale of their funds under management and business operations.”

This has also been driven by consolidation and merger activity among super funds, enabling them to achieve further scale and attract more qualified C-suite executives in risk and compliance.

In terms of skill sets, financial services organisations have been focused on strengthening their risk management and prioritising the development of senior leaders by expanding their responsibilities, the report explained.

While this has led to higher compensation as a result, Kaizen questioned whether larger workloads are sustainable long term.

“Some initially saw the remuneration increase as financial compensation for the stress levels they were experiencing. However, with a lack of senior leadership to lean on for guidance and support, being squeezed by continuing demand for risk and compliance within organisations, as well as significant regulatory change in tandem with technology/systems project work to try to streamline some of the heavy administration in the space, the salary increase did not align with the added workload and was not sustainable.”

Money Management previously reported on the burnout risk of compliance professionals working in financial services due to higher workloads and the ever-changing regulation.

Amanda Chisholm, director of legal, risk and compliance at Kaizen Recruitment, said in June: “There’s no end; regulatory change just keeps coming. What I’m finding is teams are not upping their resourcing and bringing in consultants or temporary contract workers to alleviate some of that stress. You almost don’t have time to breathe before the next thing comes up, so people are just burnt out.”