Verity journal

At the beginning of the year, we discussed an announcement made by Bank Negara Malaysia following the release of a new draft policy that will require those employed in licensed financial institutions to be screened.

The policy was designed to promote more transparency and integrity in the financial sector and create extra security measures for the hiring process of potential employees in the industry.

Taking effect on 1st July 2018, all financial institutions including financial holding companies, licensed institutions and prescribed development financial institutions will be required to abide by the Employee Screening policy.

Some of the requirements stated on the announcement made by the Bank Negara Malaysia website are:

• Financial institutions must request for employment references from current and past employers of the prospective employee;
• Financial institutions receiving a request for employment references must provide specified information in response to the request;
• Prospective employees must provide a statutory declaration on past criminal convictions or ongoing criminal investigations or proceedings that he/she may be the subject of;
• Financial institutions must make an inquiry with the Financial Markets Association of Malaysia before employing–
  • any individual as a financial market dealer; and
  • any former financial market dealer or broker into any position.

These policies can help prevent plenty of grief as it states a requirement for any applying candidates to consent to providing employment references as well as enforces a pre-employment check with the Financial Markets Association of Malaysia.

In the past where the less-than-honest managed to slip through, harsh lessons were learned the hard way such as the “1-Sen Thief” who became a millionaire by siphoning 1 sen from every customer at a local bank. If there had been extra preventive measures to screen and identify employees, cases like these may have been avoided.

Bank Negara’s efforts in maintaining transparency and taking precautionary steps is certainly commendable and exemplary.

Here at Verity Intelligence, we provide secure and reliable screening on potential hires with an in-depth look at the legitimacy of their references as well as any publicly available criminal records. These measures are especially important in financial institutions as these are the very employees who deal with your monetary and private records.

By working together with the prospective recruit, information that is provided can be verified and this gives the employer a more accurate and authentic work history along with any other notable records. These screens apply not only to potential and future employees but also those who are currently in employment. It’s never too late to profile the people working behind your organization.

Next week, we will look into the requirement for statutory declaration prior to employment in financial institutions. If you want to learn more about employee screening and how it can benefit your organization, follow us on www.verityintel.com to stay updated!