Financial Crime Apprenticeship Review

Mondays and Fridays we work on personal development. This ranges from assignment work to missions to any other work that helps to improve our skills. These days feel more beneficial to our careers than the actual rotation days, as we are able to improve and learn about things that will help us in our later careers. Tuesday-Thursday, we work on rotation, which involves working cases to help the BAU team of whichever rotation we are in. This task becomes mundane, especially when you are not updated on expectations and timelines by your manager.

Yes, I have learned a large amount of which skills are required within corporate environments. These most improved skill would be communication. I have learned the importance of the construction of emails. I have also done some work on teamworking skills, although this is limited as there is only a finite amount of work we can do in a team. Despite interest, we have had no real opportunity to test our leadership skills.

I enjoy the challenges of new tasks, which appear quite often as long as you work for them. However, we are handed very little by management, so you have to go out and find the work yourself. I find the missions more interesting than most other people. I don't enjoy rotation work as it is mundane.

We are not informed of the most simple updates, from rotation start and end dates to updates in expectations. 121's are often cancelled or rescheduled or the manager doesn't turn up and then later apologises. Bespoke rotations are subject to favouritism rather than hard work. Cohort 1 are only a few months away from the end of the apprenticeship and yet they seem unaware of what they are supposed to be doing.

Little from management, as they are unaware of how to help as they don't even understand the basics of what we do. Huge amounts of help from mentors within the rotations, who are always happy to do what they can. Can't recommend the mentors enough. Little other support to note.

The 5-weekly calls are useful, as it refreshes your agenda, as well as reprioritising the workload. We are also constantly told about how we can speak to anyone from BPP should we need to. There are also training programmes provided in order to help us to further improve our skills.

I feel that it does give us a benefit as we are more informed of the industry that we are working in and it keeps us up to date with the legal and regulatory changes in the environment. I have gained far more knowledge of the industry through the qualification than I have through anything that has been provided for me internally.

There are very few opportunities for us to network, and if we try to do it within the scheme we are discouraged, for whatever reason. There is a weekly football match that some of the boys on the apprenticeship play in, which involves members from other financial crime BAU teams. Other than that, little of note.

Yes

I believe on the whole, out of the people who work here, a lot of people want the best for each other and their careers, although I would not recommend this scheme specifically, due to the poor management. However, with the little experience that I have had with other teams and stakeholders, everyone appears to be far more capable and motivated to get the best outcome, rather than a mass focus on targets, which is the case at many other financial institutions.

I would advise them to gather more information than I had as to what would actually be included in the role. I would also ask for anything said about pay to be put in writing, as we were told when joining the scheme that we would get a payrise, which turned out to be a lie to entice more people on to the scheme. I would also try to gather more information about the industry pay levels. Some people moving on from the scheme will now be paid up to £10k less than others who work in the role that they are moving in to, just because we have been on the scheme.