CBA, Griffith Uni partner for new academy

CBA and Griffith University have created a new academy to tackle talent shortages in the financial crime domain.

It’s expected the partnership will also lead to the development of "technology and service delivery tools", as well as "collaborative research projects".

CBA said financial crime is a growing specialisation, however one that is challenging to recruit specialists for in Australia.

The Academy of Excellence in Financial Crime Investigation and Compliance, as the pair's collaborative endeavour is called, seeks to create new learning pathways for students and CBA staff.

Under the partnership, CBA said it will offer investment and experts. It will also support a number of graduate positions.

The program launch will take place early November in Brisbane and enrolments for next year are open now.

So far, courses available include non-award, microcredentials, postgraduate graduate certificates and graduate diploma qualifications.

CBA’s executive general manager of financial crime compliance John Fogarty said the bank is “committed to continuing its ability to detect, deter and disrupt financial crime in our community.”

“I am excited by this partnership with Griffith University, enabling the combined skills and experience of our respective institutions to build a sustainable career path for this profession," Fogarty said.

“This is the start of a qualification that can be applied across all industries to help combat the real impacts of financial crime in our community.”

Griffith business school accounting, finance and economics head of department, professor Andreas Chai told iTnews between 2000 and 3000 enrolments are expected in total “at a minimum”.

CBA’s in-house microcredentials program will provide credit towards a graduate certificate and a graduate diploma in financial crime investigation and compliance.

“We're developing a new interdisciplinary approach to designing these courses," Chai said, which will incorporate “expertise in criminology, digital forensics, and forensic accounting."

“We're putting together a new short course that takes key components from these different disciplines to develop something new, which focuses on what we call the investigative mindset”.

Chai said the courses will also focus on “key investigative skills that are emphasised in forensic accounting and digital forensics”.

“Basically, what that means is, as an investigator, what precise steps do you take to critically think about what kind of evidence you're seeing, what kind of red flags you're seeing, and to put the evidence together in a way that you uncover what's really going on in the data," he said.

Developing this mindset was a conscious choice by the team given the majority of training available in the industry is heavily focused on “ticking the boxes without really thinking about the overall mission and thinking about the deeper set of investigative skills that are required.”

Courses are “definitely going to talk about cryptocurrencies and emerging threats”, and cover cyber security and key technologies.