During the darkest days of the financial crisis in late 2008/early 2009, the three bright lights on the employment market were risk, compliance and product control.

Over the last three months, middle-office job volumes at banks, particularly those in Singapore, have increased even further as the need to beef up governance is finally matched by hiring budgets. Recruitment agencies are also starting to see more mandates coming their way because some HR teams can no longer handle all these roles in-house.

Many of the openings are newly created, rather than replacements. “One private bank has gone to the extent of creating a new role within both its local and global compliance team which is dedicated towards approving all new wealth management products from a compliance perspective before allowing them to be marketed,” says Patrick Tan, a director at Global Search Partners.

So which banks are particularly keen to chase candidates in the Lion City? Barclays Capital has “continued to source throughout the downturn. It has not let up in its expansion and hiring plans,” says one headhunter who asked not to be named.

Credit Suisse is recruiting in large numbers, as is RBS, although the UK bank “constantly struggles to find candidates due to its government ownership and uncertainty around the Asian business,” adds the anonymous headhunter.

But hold on, there’s a big downside for the banks: a severe skill shortage means middle-office hiring in Singapore isn’t so easy.

“The candidate market is no better than it was two years ago. The crisis has highlighted the lack of good talent in Singapore. Some banks had high expectations in finding good people but they soon realised that all they would be doing was interviewing their competitors’ rejects,” says Kyle Blockley, director of KS Consulting.

Finding foreign talent is still frowned upon for most job functions but in the middle office, especially in product control, it’s often a necessity. “We do all we can to source locally, however, at AVP level and above, it usually ends up being someone shipped in from abroad,” adds Blockley.

For compliance roles, Tan says another option is to hire from a related function. “With the limited amount of product compliance specialists in the local talent pool, some banks have taken the initiative to recruit product managers in wealth management and complement their training with compliance knowledge to fill these roles,” he adds.