Fund accountants hard to find

Experienced Irish fund accountants are becoming as rare as leprechauns and tax-paying rock stars.

Over 70 per cent of respondents to a recent survey by Deloitte's Fund Administration Service said that managing internal growth was the biggest challenge now facing the industry.

The Irish funds industry has trebled in the last five years. It now boasts a mind-blowing $1.3 trillion in funds under administration. But all indications are that companies are struggling to recruit enough staff to keep up with this phenomenal rate of expansion.

Derek Moriarty, financial services partner at Deloitte, says the explosive growth rate of the funds sector is putting strains on business, particularly in relation to talent management. "This is exacerbated by the high attrition levels we are currently seeing in the industry," he adds.

If you're new to the fund servicing industry, expect to be thrown in at the deep end as a result. Moriarty says inexperienced staff are being forced to learn fast: "Companies are finding that they need to get staff up the learning curve quickly in order to deal with the amount of business out there."

Future growth is likely to be in more specialist areas. Two-thirds of the companies Deloitte surveyed predicted hedge funds would be the main growth area over the next three to five years. Private equity funds were also tipped as having strong growth prospects.

But if the Irish fund industry doesn't get an injection of talent soon, jobs may yet move elsewhere. Deloitte's survey also suggested that global financial institutions are considering moving certain transactional activities to lower cost locations such as the Pacific Rim or Eastern Europe.