MENA Talks

Every oil and gas company wants to achieve optimum exploration, production and efficient processing. The management of risk in the supply chain plays an essential role in achieving this. Supply chains have become increasingly complex and fluid, making them challenging to manage at a time of growing regulatory risk.

Quite often the management of supply chains is the responsibility of the procurement department, but with the inherent risk of these chains, there is the suggestion that senior executives oversee the function.

Yet with dramatically falling oil prices, reductions in headcount and uncertainty about the future, the global oil and gas industry is under mounting pressure to make every penny count. Companies are looking for immediate cost savings, but the question is, what function gets sacrificed?

Rising labour costs are placing the industry’s productivity levels under increasing pressure and leaving organizations vulnerable. There is no longer the headcount that there used to be, and many of the headcount reductions are said to occur in the purchasing and supply chain departments. This means that there is no longer the resource to conduct proper validation, prequalification and auditing of their suppliers.

It’s crucial during such times, when everyone is feeling the pinch, that risk is carefully and cautiously managed, especially supply chain risk.

Failure to carry out reviews of suppliers puts main contractors in a significant position of risk, since supply chain problems can affect firms’ financial position and reputation.

How do compliance professionals cope, what steps do they take to reduce risk and is there a point when they have to follow their conscience?

MENA Talks speaks to Tamer Nasser, Head of Compliance for Dragon Oil, about supply chain risk in the oil and gas industry, and asked him how best to manage, not just supply chains, but senior management.

Ultimate beneficial ownership has become a high priority for regulators, and there is now a regulatory obligation for compliance officers in certain companies to be able to provide documented evidence of ownership of business relationships. Unfortunately, this is not a straightforward task.

With the introduction of VAT to the GCC as of 2018, businesses need to understand how best to prepare. Listen to Stewart Nivision, Global Head of Indirect Tax at Thomson Reuters, discuss how technology can steamline the process of VAT implementation.

Recently, there has been a lot of sensational media coverage surrounding the changes to the Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)  laws in the UAE. However, the question remains – what has actually changed? What is now considered criminal behavior? What constitutes illegal use that would warrant the level of financial penalties that we have seen in the reported media?

In this episode of MENA Talks, we speak to Kelly Tymburski, Partner in the Telecoms, Media & Technology (TMT) Group at Dentons about the changes in the legal framework and its  impact on technology usage (VOIP),  what it actually means for businesses and individuals here, and importantly, the practical steps they can take to ensure they are protected from these new changes.

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the demand for talented compliance staff. Demand for GRC skills and expertise has grown exponentially, and at a time of increasing enforcement activity, skilled professionals are scarce on the ground. For many organizations, upskilling an existing workforce is one of the most workable solutions, but how do you retain the much sought after skills once you’ve produced them? The compliance function is under more pressure than ever before, and senior executives have great expectations.

In such a fast-moving environment, organizations need to keep their valued compliance staff to ensure business continuity.

The compliance function has changed in recent years and has moved from a back room operation to a central player, key to the success and growth of the organization. Experienced compliance officers are expected to be involved in a wide range of activities and the skills now required for compliance officers include leadership, understanding business lines and products, operational change management and the ability to deal with regulators. There is far more pressure on compliance professionals to track and analyse regulatory developments, and to be able to quickly assimilate their impact.

The combination of skills which financial institutions now require can be hard to find in the first place, and is becoming increasingly difficult to retain.

Senior executives will need to think carefully about how to retain talent which, in many cases, they will have trained. In future, compliance staff will have higher expectations about their career development and will look at the opportunities both within the business and elsewhere. Businesses will need to distinguish themselves as a good place to work, do more to show they appreciate and value compliance staff and must plan carefully how they will retain the talent they need.

In this podcast we speak to Basem Al-Issa, the Deputy Managing Director of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Basem is responsible for training and career development at KPC and has responsibility for over 30,000 employees and contractors, a massive task. We asked him how he found his key compliance people, how he held onto them, and what he thought were the core skills that would help safeguard the company for the next 10 years at least.

Demand for energy in the Middle East is rising at four times that of the global average, and the advancement of renewable energy is gathering pace. According to a 2016 report by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), the volumes of renewable energy have been greater in the developing world than in OECD nations. Developing countries have the opportunity to implement more intelligent energy solutions, and the financial markets can act as a catalyst for this evolution.

The business landscape in the Middle East offers a number of opportunities to tailor financing to the requirements of the renewable energy sector. The existing public private partnership model is an advantage, and the region can also look to mature markets for key takeaways on how the financial community can make the best investment decisions.

But is the Middle East fully prepared to take up this challenge? Most renewable energy is intermittent by nature, so are there enough smart storage solutions? With more efficient technology increasingly available, could renewable energy be a game changer?

In this episode of MENA Talks, we hear from Nathan Weatherstone, the head of Renewables Energy at NBAD, as we discuss the opportunities, challenges and potential rewards of renewable energy investment.

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Conversion to IFRS Standards in Saudi Arabia are already underway with publicly listed companies required to report using the new financial reporting framework as of 2017, and SMEs following suit in 2018.

Adoption of IFRS Standards is part of the ‘Project for Transition to International Accounting and Auditing Standards’ introduced by the Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). A key advantage in the introduction of IFRS is the standardization of reporting, allowing entities across the world to be compared in a consistent way.

In this episode of MENA Talks, we hear from Andrew Hay, Global Head of Accounts Production for Thomson Reuters, talk through some of the obstacles and opportunities associated with IFRS conversion, based on his first-hand experience in Australia.

The regulatory environment is putting increasing pressure on banks and other financial institutions, as they are compelled to focus on meeting current compliance obligations while at the same time prepare for upcoming regulatory change.

In the past, it was only during the process of onboarding new clients that organizations were expected to scrutinize certain documentation under ‘Know Your Customer’ regulations. Following a series of global events however, beginning with the attacks of 9/11, and including the globalization of the banking industry and the financial crisis of 2008, this relatively relaxed approach was no longer possible. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established as a G7 initiative in 1989 to develop anti-money laundering norms and standards for its subscriber countries. This organization has been the main driving force behind the wide scale adoption of a risk-based approach (RBA), which is designed to move compliance from a rigid, ‘one size fits all’ methodology to a more flexible approach. A degree of flexibility in compliance programs became increasingly necessary as regulators around the world stepped up their anti-money laundering and threat financing initiatives, as it helped to achieve a better rate of resource efficiency, with a greater proportion of resources directed to third parties considered high risk.

A negative, however, was that the RBA’s flexibility also introduced a degree of uncertainty as some organizations battled with interpretation, thus increasing the complexity of compliance. At the same time, the 2012 FATF Recommendations increased the challenge of KYC compliance by changing requirements, such as the need to identify the ultimate beneficial ownership of a customer organization. While these Recommendations filter into regulations across the globe, many signatory countries are preparing for their upcoming FATF mutual evaluation, a process that assesses compliance with the Recommendations. Specifically for organizations based in these countries that will be coming under review, getting to grips with the changing regulatory demands of KYC can be very challenging.

In this podcast on Next Generation KYC, James Swenson, Head of Financial Crime and Reputational Risk Managed Services at Thomson Reuters chats to Charles Haryott, Head of Proposition and Product, Client On-Boarding and KYC Solutions at Thomson Reuters, about the challenge of KYC compliance, how the increasing responsibilities are impacting on organizations, and what compliance executives can do to simplify the challenge of KYC.

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the demand for talented compliance staff. Demand for GRC skills and expertise has grown exponentially, and at a time of increasing enforcement activity, skilled professionals are scarce on the ground. For many organizations, upskilling an existing workforce is one of the most workable solutions, but how do you retain the much sought after skills once you’ve produced them? The compliance function is under more pressure than ever before, and senior executives have great expectations.

In such a fast-moving environment, organizations need to keep their valued compliance staff to ensure business continuity.

The compliance function has changed in recent years and has moved from a back room operation to a central player, key to the success and growth of the organization. Experienced compliance officers are expected to be involved in a wide range of activities and the skills now required for compliance officers include leadership, understanding business lines and products, operational change management and the ability to deal with regulators. There is far more pressure on compliance professionals to track and analyse regulatory developments, and to be able to quickly assimilate their impact.

The combination of skills which financial institutions now require can be hard to find in the first place, and is becoming increasingly difficult to retain.

Senior executives will need to think carefully about how to retain talent which, in many cases, they will have trained. In future, compliance staff will have higher expectations about their career development and will look at the opportunities both within the business and elsewhere. Businesses will need to distinguish themselves as a good place to work, do more to show they appreciate and value compliance staff and must plan carefully how they will retain the talent they need.

In this podcast we speak to Basem Al-Issa, the Deputy Managing Director of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Basem is responsible for training and career development at KPC and has responsibility for over 30,000 employees and contractors, a massive task. We asked him how he found his key compliance people, how he held onto them, and what he thought were the core skills that would help safeguard the company for the next 10 years at least.