How to hire safely and successfully in the banking sector

The banking sector is undergoing a transformation. Rapid advancements in technology are reshaping the way banking services are delivered, while digitalization is streamlining processes, improving efficiency and enhancing the customer experience.

Competition in the market from innovative challenger banks, Fintech start-ups, big tech companies and peer-to-peer lending platforms – all offering innovative solutions and challenging traditional models, today’s banks are facing pressure to adapt to meet evolving customer demands.

The wealth of talent required to keep traditional financial services organizations running efficiently and safely means today’s hiring managers cannot afford to sit still. One key challenge they face is preserving the delicate balance between trust and security. 

The Role of Background Screening in Banking Recruitment

It is a highly competitive market and the demand for top talent far outweighs the limited pool of qualified candidates. Financial services firms must be innovative if they are to satisfy their hiring requirements. 

Banking is also a highly regulated industry and employers must balance speed to hire with ensuring the quality and credentials of their candidates. This means having a robust and reliable employment screening and background check process in place, to safeguard against potential risks and ensure that only qualified individuals are entrusted with roles within the high-stakes banking sector.

How Is Banking Recruitment Evolving?

With talent demand continuing to outweigh supply, talent acquisition operations within banking and other highly competitive service industries, have undergone significant remodelling. This has led to new and alternative ways to address recruitment challenges. These include:

1. Skill Based Hiring
   Traditional talent pools, such as graduates from top-ranked universities, no longer monopolise the recruitment landscape. A rising trend is skill-based recruitment, which looks beyond educational qualifications to the skills and experiences that are necessary for success. This shift may lead to improved workforce diversity as well as ensuring alignment with the specific competencies essential for success in various roles.
   
   
2. Boot Camp Hiring
   Boot camps present an alternative approach to talent acquisition, allowing candidates to demonstrate their skills through practical challenges and hands-on tasks, often within simulated ‘real world’ environments. This immersive method gives both employers and candidates a feel for working together and determines whether the individual has the necessary skills and credentials to excel. 

3. Hire For Remote Work
   With 86% of financial software developers currently work entirely remotely, remote working has emerged as a viable strategy for building agile and inclusive teams. Hiring managers within financial services are capitalising on the trend to work remotely by creating teams from talent based around the globe. This option not only helps address the current talent shortages in the industry, it also has the potential to lower costs and enrich workforce diversity.
   
   
4. Industry Collaboration with Educational Institutions
   To help create jobs and fuel economic opportunity, banks across the world are partnering with local organizations and academic establishments to create industry-ready professionals by providing students with hands-on experience and skills and building a pipeline of talent for the future.
   
   For instance, as part of the "Fintech 2025" strategy, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) created the Industry Project Masters Network (IPMN) scheme in 2022 to develop Fintech talent by facilitating industry training for postgraduate students.

Why Is Background Screening Essential Within Banking? 

Given the volume of investments and handling of sensitive customer data, financial institutions of all types require stringent employment screening and background reference checks. This helps to safeguard companies and their resources while mitigating the risk of criminal activity, such as fraudulent dealings by a rogue employee and the subsequent violation of any regulations, which can have significant consequences. 

Staffing challenges in banking are not only about sourcing and hiring the right developers, data scientists, software engineers or product managers - but ensuring fast onboarding – critical, as the best candidates are often off the market in 10 days.

How Can Veremark Help Your Banking Organisation? 

• Automation for Efficiency
  Veremark’s digitized employee screening and reference check platform enables businesses to screen candidates for all mandatory and optional checks. This level of automation optimizes turnaround times, saving days compared to traditional, manual screening processes.
  
  London-based financial technology firm, Zilch, partnered with Veremark for its pre-employment screening, successfully increasing its team from 35 to 180 in less than 12 months. Veremark ensured Zilch remained compliant in accordance with the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) while conducting all required checks, enabling Zilch to expedite hiring and optimize the candidate experience.
  
  
• Security through Blockchain Technology
  Veremark’s 'Verepass Career Passport' is an innovative, blockchain technology-enabled service or wallet that securely stores individual professional history and career credentials.
  
  Once the individual’s data is collected and verified, it is stored in a tamper-proof Ethereum blockchain network. This enables companies and their candidates, employees and contractors to verify and then securely store professional qualifications, work experience, references and any other checks that have been carried out previously, thus saving time by avoiding repeat verifications.
  
  
• Third Party Alliances
  Veremark has forged strong partnerships to offer banking clients access to a global pool of vetted and verified professionals who can be hired and onboarded within days.
  
  Veremark’s alliance with Codemonk, for instance, allows Fintechs to hire skilled individuals to help scale their technology teams. Through Codemonk, companies can assemble and manage teams remotely through one single and convenient platform. 

Successful and safe recruitment is dependent on carrying out the right checks, not only to protect company and customer interests but also to maintain compliance, particularly important within the banking sector.

Whether staff are permanent, remote, contract, part-time or full-time, if they have access to company property and data, they have the potential to breach business and customer security.

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Veremark is the leading provider of local and global background checks, offering 100% digital and accurate checks for new and current staff members.

Our innovative platform gives HR professionals convenient access to carry out vital background screening on employment history, criminal record, civil and credit history, global sanctions, identity and references, enabling them to make informed hiring decisions while maintaining compliance and safeguarding company interests. 

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Whether hiring one candidate or many, Veremark ensures safe and scalable employment checks for the banking sector.

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