IT rush in Middle East banks
Financial techie types can cash in on Middle Eastern banks' focus on security.
Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force predicts banks and financial institutions in the region are set to spend $2bn on IT this year and next - mainly centred on risk management to guard against fraud and money laundering.
Henry Pretorius, head of risk practice at IT vendor SAS, says: "Amidst the region's booming economy and the rapidly growing markets, banks and financial institutions today face a wide range of risks in the normal course of their business."
Job opportunities on the development side are unlikely to be plentiful, as most financial firms take over the counter solutions from firms like SAS, SunGard, Algorithmics, Risk Metrics and RiskTech, many of whom are rushing to the region to cash in on the spending boom.
However, within each firm, the systems are tailored to the i-bank's individual needs. And the skills required to do this are relatively rare.
Torquil Warren, team leader at IT and business technologist recruiters Project Partners, says: "It's very important from a project perspective to make sure you have people who are highly quantitative, highly analytical and understand both the business and the technology. The people who have this combined knowledge are quite few and far between."
Nicola Beer, senior consultant at recruiters RP International in Dubai, says that banks' appetite for good IT staff has picked up over the last year, and US and European techies could be in for a pay rise: "If you're moving from the US or Europe to a bank in the Middle East for a permanent IT role, you can typically look for a 10-15% pay rise."
However, she says that the contractor market isn't as buoyant, and though they're seeing an influx of temporary IT workers from Western markets, local banks would pay a maximum of 550 a day.
Mashreq Bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Noor Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and HSBC are all keen to up their risk management functions, according to SAS.
