General Description
A compliance officer or internal auditor ensures that their firm (usually a bank or a financial services company) is following the procedures that the firm has established to manage risk and to satisfy regulatory requirements. Furthermore, professionals working in this area would periodically assess the adequacy of the firm’s risk management procedures and examine business operations to identify new risk exposures.
Compliance officers/internal auditors work across all areas of the firm (e.g., loan operations, trading operations, foreign exchange, treasury, etc. . . ). New hires are exposed to a number of areas in a short time period and oftentimes work in teams. Traveling may or may not be required.
Some keys to success in this area of work include good quantitative skills combined with good writing skills. It is not uncommon to work with big data. Excel and other computer skills (e.g., Tableau, Python) are important. When an analysis is complete, the results are often summarized in a presentation/report to higher level managers.
Suggested Elective Courses
- Commercial Bank Management – FIN 4610
- International Business Finance – FIN 4750
- Derivatives and Financial Risk Management – FIN 4770
- FinTech/InsureTech – FIN 4850
- Intermediate Accounting I – ACC 3100
- Cost Accounting – ACC 3200