Associate - Enforcement Division - Sandeep Bual

Investment Banks have the most extraordinary number of jobs within them - it can be completely mind-boggling. Every time we went near one, we found a whole new department or group of people that did something we’d never heard of. This seems to be due to the immense specialisation within banks, where it can be quite possible to sit next to someone but have no idea what they do.

There are a couple of major distinctions worth highlighting. Investment Banking or ‘IBD’ tends to be the department which most people imagine when thinking about an investment bank. They are the ones doing huge M&A deals, putting in incredibly long hours (14 hours plus each day - including weekends, for months at a time - is not uncommon) and schmoozing with business leaders. Work/life balance is not easily found, but on the flipside the work you do will likely be high-profile and give you an enormous breadth of business and finance experience. This means that if you want to leave London or Investment Banking at some point you shouldn’t have a problem, as the skills gained are very transferable. We've met ex-bankers in companies ranging from renewable energy start-ups to large pharmaceuticals.

Capital Markets is where you’ll find the traders, salespeople and research analysts. They’re market-based and are the ones you see on TV shouting down phones and pacing frantically in front of five flickering computer screens. They’re monitoring market activity and reacting immediately to any changes. It’s noisier and a bit more adrenalin-fuelled than IBD. One of the big perks of Capital Markets (other than the actual job), is that the hours tend to reflect those of the market. That means early starts, with most people in the office by 6.30am, but it also means you tend to be out by six in the evening - and there is almost never weekend work. So if you’re an early riser the work/life balance is pretty good, especially compared to IBD. One limiting factor is that you’re in a highly specialised, role usually in a very specific market area, so there’s not much in the way of transferable skills. If you’re an FX institutional salesperson it’s not that easy to move into another product area, and you’re going to be tied to working in London (or another major financial centre).

Beyond these two areas you have a massive range of middle and back office functions. There’s Technology, Operations, Legal, Finance, Marketing and HR for a start. So if banking interests you then it’s definitely worth looking at the breadth of what’s on offer. The other thing that struck us about banks was just how diverse they were. Without doubt, they had the most mixed workforces we saw, with every member of a team often from a different country. While this makes for a really dynamic and interesting work environment, it does mean that when you’re applying for a job, you’re not just up against your peers in this country but across the whole world - so that application form had better stand out!

Who are you and what do you do?

What is the FSA?

Well I like to think of them as the watchdog of the financial industry, so basically the financial police. All the things out in the market, all the products that are being sold, all the products that are being traded are following some sort of regulation - and essentially it’s picking up when they are not and making sure that you bring those people back in, really.

What attracted you to this career?

I had always wanted to work within financial services, but something that was a bit different, rather than your conventional banking, rather than your conventional asset management firm. I wanted to do something that was a bit more oriented towards achieving right outcomes as opposed to profit outcomes. So the nature of the work you do at the FSA is not so much making as much money or doing it in a certain about of time, it is making sure you reach the right outcome, which is something I was interested in. I really like the fact that you are given a real general understanding of the financial world so you do get to learn about insurance products, you get to learn about the business of large-scale banks. So I think you get a whole overview of the financial service industry and also I think it also does challenge the conception that people have - that in financial regulation you must be poring over a regulatory textbook but it isn't like that at all. I quite like the fact that the work we do is very much in line with the police, so it is the financial police effectively, going out there and making sure you bring dodgy criminals to rights and chasing up people and saying ‘Actually this isn't right and you have been ripping off so-and-so’. So it is a lot more interesting than people think and it does really make a difference, making sure that people are towing the line.

What does your job involve?

Once a case is referred to enforcement, I will be working on a team of people. I work in the small firms division so the teams are relatively small - there are about three or four people in a team and we will conduct a full investigation. That might mean requesting files from the company we are investigating, going through the documents and conducting a thorough check into the potential breaches, potential failings - and then putting that evidence together to form a case. And a hundred percent of the time we will conduct an interview with the individuals to discuss the firm - and that is a compelled interview so it is under statutory powers, they are obliged to answer your questions - and then put the evidence to them and ask them to explain those findings.

What do you do on a typical day?

My typical day is a mixture of things - a lot of the stuff I do is computer-based simply because of the fact that there are a lot of documents that need to be drafted, a lot of analysis that needs to be done on files and documents. So a lot of the time we are just looking through information and looking for signs that something is not right. A lot of it is interaction within the team, there are a lot of meetings to discuss what route we should go down or ‘What do you think one thing suggests?’ or ‘What do you think this suggests?’; so it varies on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes when you are at the interview stages you could be out of the office for three days. At one point I was off in Wales for three days in a little village and that was really interesting - just a complete change of scenery from the hustle of Canary Wharf - you are just sitting in a small little town so it really does vary.

Who do you liaise with on a daily basis?

Within the FSA a lot of it is quite team based, especially the department I am in, so I liaise with a lot of my fellow investigators on the team and liaise with my lead investigator and my manager just to oversee the decisions we are making. Similarly you would liaise a lot with the firms you are investigating, from the compliance officer of the firm up through to the director of the firm, so on a day-to-day basis you can have people that you are working with but it can also be outside the agency as well.

What are the specialisms within your industry?

There are loads of different areas within the FSA. I would tend to break it down into supervision - that is going out into small firms and going out to insurance brokers, going out into wholesale banks and making sure you have got an understanding of their controls and that they are effectively following all the regulations that are in place. Enforcement - that is what I do once you find out they haven't been following the regulations in place, so bringing those people to rights. Authorisation - so when a new firm wants to start up and is looking for permissions, it is the department that deals with that. Policies - so working on the regulatory policy and developing that forward. So there are different areas in terms of strategy and risk and there are loads of different areas within the FSA, but I would say that is the broad overview.

Interviewer: Within each of those areas you have mentioned, are there a range of jobs you can do?

I mean simply within enforcement you can work in the wholesale enforcement or the retail side of enforcement, those two actual vary to a much bigger extent than you would think, you can actually work on wholesale involvement of larger firms and larger banks or you could be working on small IFA, smaller insurance intermediaries. The way the teams are usually structured is you have either a lawyer, a forensic investigator and forensic accountant and then you would have another investigator, so you do have a little of each skill set that you actually require to follow the whole thing through.

What are the best bits about your job?

For me it is the fact that you are doing actually impacts people on a very small level. I work in small firms so a lot of the work we do is impacting consumers on a base level - it is your mortgage, it is your insurance products that you buy, it is your pension, things that you and me will go out and buy and we are making sure that products provided on to the market are safe to buy and people are well-informed about the products. So I like the fact that you feel you are doing something to make sure everybody is being protected and that everyone has access to the right information. When you are working in small firms you are given a lot of responsibility just because of the fact that resources are limited - there are hundreds and thousands of small firms so when you are working in the teams they do give you a lot of responsibility to go forward with the investigation and kind of pick out whether you would like to take it and which way you think would be beneficial for the investigation.

What are the worst bits about your job?

Because of the nature of the things we do means that it does have to be approved at a higher level, sometimes there are repercussions of those things, you want to get really involved but you have to make sure you are following the right procedures and that someone essentially has signed it off. So sometimes you just want to get out there and get really stuck in but you have to hold back and make sure you have checked all of that over first.

What has been your greatest achievement?

In enforcement, one of the cases I have been working on started as soon as I came into the division so I was working on it on my first day and I have seen that case through. So it has been a six-month period where I have been working on the investigation from start to finish and that was good to see the outcome we reached - it resulted in a fine for a mortgage broker so that was nice, seeing my own work going into that and seeing the outcome as well.

Any regrets?

I don't think so. I think maybe I would have taken a gap year but that is more adventurous as opposed to anything I would specifically change in what I have chosen to do, so no, not really.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

I think in terms of an hourly rate it is one of the best-paid jobs in the city, so without giving too much away I think it is very well paid for what we do. And also you do get a lot of perks in terms of there is a subsidised restaurant, a gym just under the building and there is a very good flexible benefits offer and you get enough holiday.

Is there much in the way of travel?

Because it is a UK-based regulator a lot of the firms we regulate, well most of the firms we regulate, are based in the UK. Sometimes it is quite nice to go out and go to another city for a while, one of the firms we regulated was based in Birmingham and one was in Manchester so just going out and going with the team to visit can be quite fun. But there are a couple of people who have been on secondment and there are a couple of people in the department who worked at the policy headquarters in Frankfurt, some get to go to Paris and some of the cases call upon your services in other countries in terms of liaison as well, so it does really depend on where you are based really.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

In terms of ease of access, when we have to go visit firms in some of the larger banks, it is around London. But everyone is easily accessible, we do have an Edinburgh office - that is quite interesting in that they do conduct a lot of their supervision work from Edinburgh as well. It is just that I think London is a financial district so it does make a lot of sense for the financial regulator to be sitting there watching over the City as well.

I would say think about where you are based as well, one of the big things I love about the FSA is where we are actually based, I love working in Canary Wharf, I just think it is such a nice place to be in; in the summer it is such a nice location. I think it would be quite nice to know where you are based and where our offices are, that does have a big factor.

What is the working environment like?

There is definitely a good mix of people in terms of different ages and different backgrounds, simply because the nature of the people that the FSA attracts can go from people that are starting off here to experienced people who have come from the industry and are essentially looking for more of a work-life balance. You also get some people who have been in the industry for 30 years and bring a whole wealth of experience and then you have got some fresh face just out of university and you could be working on a team together. It is really interesting having that mix of people but it is brilliant to have that.

The dress code is formal and smart, just like it is in most places in the City, but that is simply because you are interacting with firms and you are representing the FSA when you are out on visits or when you are conducting meetings on the premises as well. It is still a relaxed environment, but it’s a formal dress code as such.

How did you get into your job?

I did a summer internship to get a taster of what the FSA does and the work life balance actually was like and the nature of the work we do and that translated in an offer on the graduate programme. Once I had kind of seen what they did and confirmed for myself that it was what I wanted to do, it was just a natural progression on to that and there is a lot of people from a variety of different disciplines, it is not specifically that you need to have a law background or an economics related background or a finance related background - it is much more to do with the skill set you can bring to the programme so somebody who is an able communicator, somebody who is able to pick up things quickly and who is very analytical, who can just kind of think things through from a different point of view - and it is quite refreshing to have people come from a variety of different disciplines around you to do that.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I would say that the key skill you have to have in this job is enthusiasm, I think - definitely something everyone should have for their graduate job. Analytical skills because what you are actually doing is going into a firm and try and understand their business - you are trying to pick it up quite quickly but still be able to see where you think there is potentially room for improvement or potentially things are being missed or that you are not being told the full facts. You have got to be inquisitive enough to ask those question, and say, ‘Actually can you please explain that?’ or ‘Can you tell me more about it?’ or ‘Why do you do it this way and not that way?’ So somebody who is knowledgeable to an extent that they are able to take on the information given but they are knowledgeable to the extent that they are able to ask questions outside of that scope as well.

Similarly I think you need to be somebody who is good with people, because you are going into meetings with senior directors and going into meetings with people who have been in the industry for many years and essentially you are asking them to explain themselves. So you need to be somebody who is confident in that respect and somebody who isn't afraid to ask questions. Especially when you are interviewing a forty year old mortgage broker who has been in the industry for the past twenty years, and you are asking them to explain themselves and presenting facts to them, there is this whole, ‘Well who are you and why are you asking me these questions?’ But at the end of the day, you are in the role because you have been given the authority to do that role and essentially you wouldn't be asking those questions if you didn't think there was something wrong. So you have to go back and say ‘No, actually, I have every right to ask you these questions’ and as long as you conduct yourself in a professional manner it shouldn't be a problem.

What's the application process like?

Specifically for the graduate scheme you have to apply directly to the graduate scheme unless of course you have done the internship in which case you get made an offer on the basis of that. The application process for the graduate programme is an application that you have to fill in on the website and then once you have done that you are invited to conduct a telephone interview. And from that you are invited to a day-long assessment day which is a mixture of exercises, which actually is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it is done in a way that you are being tested and stretched to your ability. So you do a group exercise to see how well you work with people, you do an exercise where you are just working by yourself to see what your thought process is, and then you do a numerical test to see what your numerical reasoning is. You are tested on a variety of different levels but it doesn't feel like you are being tested, it just feels like you are solving problems really. Essentially that is what we do - we solve problems. They do recruit externally for associate positions, but for the graduate scheme you have to apply specifically for the graduate scheme.

How is the FSA Graduate scheme structured?

One of the good things about the graduate scheme is that you are encouraged to do a professional qualification so you find a lot of people do tend to say, ‘Actually, I would quite like to go down more of a financial services route’ and there is an option of doing something at the CFA, or some people take on board more specific qualifications or into Quants or Risk. Myself, I am following more of a legal route, so law conversion, and following that route through - so there is a lot of flexibility in terms of where you actually take your career.

Interviewer: So you can effectively end up being an accountant or a lawyer or another sort of finance service regulator?

Yes, definitely - you could end up with a forensic accounting qualification and end up in the forensic accounting part of the FSA, or essentially you could build on your law qualifications and end up as a lawyer for the FSA, so there is a lot of manoeuvring around that you could do. The good thing about the FSA graduate programme is that it operates on a rotational basis and so you do get the opportunity to rotate through three different departments. I wanted to start off in enforcement but a lot of the work we do is supervisory - going out into firms and making sure that they are on top of their compliance arrangements and they are on top of their financial promotions, and having a look at how they conduct their business. So, I mean, that is one of the areas that I think is quite essential and I would quite like to get some experience in, so I think that will be my next stop.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I think definitely enthusiasm - so somebody who is quite enthusiastic about the work that they want to be doing or the industry they are interested in. When you come for an interview you can immediately tell that if somebody is interested in something they are doing. I think especially somewhere like the FSA, on a day-to-day basis you have to want to be doing this kind of work, and you have to want to be achieving the right outcomes, so from that basis that should come across in interview. So I would definitely say, make sure you think it is what you want to do, and make sure that comes across at the interview as well.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

On the graduate programme you come in as an associate and you are an associate for three years - so you come in and do your first rotation, then your second year rotation, then on your third year you go away on secondment for six months and then you come back to your final rotation which is the department you would like to finish off in and then ideally you stay on and continue your career from there. So you are an associate level and then once you come off the graduate programme you can work towards becoming an Advanced Associate or Manager.

Interviewer: Then where from there - do you become partners, directors?

No, it doesn't work like that - it works as, Advanced Associate to Manager, then Head of Department - so I would say the structure is quite flat in that respect, but once you do progress there is a significant step up. Once you’ve got to grips with the basics of what you’re doing, you are encouraged to take on more and you are given more responsibility. And also you feel more comfortable taking the lead in investigations, taking the lead in how the case is going to progress - so I think once people see that and once you recognise that yourself, it is encouraged.

Where do you see the industry going?

In the current economic climate, it is probably quite obvious you should be looking into Risk. Regulations are always going to be hotspots because it is always going to be around - there is not getting away from it in firms. I would definitely say that if you want to go into a career that you know will also be a challenge that you will be facing very soon, then regulations is definitely one of those.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

I think the FSA are very good at understanding the fact that you are only as good as the industry that you regulate. So they encourage you, that’s why a secondment is built into the graduate programme. They encourage you to go out there and see what it’s like from the other side of the coin. Then essentially you come back with that knowledge and go back to regulating them, so there is this whole jumping in and out and being aware of what goes on in the industry. There are transferable skills in that respect, and also I think that you’ve been on such a good graduate programme for three years, you are a prime candidate anyway, so why wouldn't someone want to offer you a job?

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

You definitely need to be aware of the financial news, so using resources like the Financial Times and general broadsheet papers is extremely useful just to get an overview of what is going on in the industry overall. And then also in relation to the FSA, compliance is actually a really good resource so there is actually an online resource to that to actually work out what is going on in the world of financial compliance as well, and also a lot of the law publications are really useful as well for what happens at the FSA because there is a huge cross over between the financial and financial legal world over the FSA.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I think I would have been a doctor - just because it was what my mum would have said!