A new qualification that will ensure you are never out of work

The Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment is launching a new qualification. The title? Combating Financial Crime.

You can read all about it here. Among other things, it covers: bribery, terrorist finance, corruption, money laundering and 'combating financial crime' in general. There are no entry requirements. The CISI says it's expecting a "couple of hundred" people to enroll.

Compliance recruiters say financial crime is a large and growing area in which employment opportunities are increasingly plentiful.

"It's very much a growth area," says Paul Geist, senior consultant at recruitment firm PSD Group. "The FSA have redefined the difference between fraud and financial crime and it's creating a lot of extra work. This is a huge space, especially with international terrorism and all the sanction lists. All the big retail banks are recruiting heavily here."

How much can you earn as a financial crime buster? Global heads of sanctions are apparently on 200k, plus a bonus. Juniors are on considerably less (55-70k after five years, plus a small reward for good behaviour).

Individuals with the new financial crime qualification might want to work in retail or investment banks. They might also want to work in consultancies or the FSA. Many of them will have worked for the regulator previously. Some may have worked for the police. Steve Young, Director of Global Corporate Security at BarCap is said to have a former police background.

Unfortunately, the job may not be as exciting as it sounds. Jim Oakes, an ex- Fraud Squad Detective and Financial Crime Director for Barclaycard, says a lot of financial crime work is simply about monitoring systems and looking at computer generated suspicious activity reports. "It's not usually about investigative work. It's more that you've found someone on a list who's in breach of regulations," he tells us, whilst not sitting in an Aston Martin DB5</b.