Dear Followers,

I would like to officially introduce you to the new look of Finance by KD. After some careful consideration I have decided to start offering my services on an outsourced basis. With over 10 years experience in the financial services industry in Malta covering various roles, I have decided to branch out into a free-lance/outsourced service, offering the following roles:

• Non-executive Director
• Independent Investment Committee Member
• Compliance & Risk Officer
• Money Laundering Reporting Officer
• Company Secretary
• Governance Consultancy
• Personalized Staff Training

I have been performing all the above roles, in one form or another, for an amount of years now. Furthermore, I have been approved to perform all the roles that need the Regulator’s approval. Having worked with various entities concurrently I have experience in managing my time efficiently in order to meet required targets and give the best results I can to those who have engaged my services. The added value of hiring someone in my position is that you gain access to someone with a wide array of expertise in different fields, which many a time are quite related and are needed within any entity.

I understand that one may employ someone who has more focused/specific expertise in the various fields I cover, for example a lawyer focused on financial services regulation would be more knowledgeable than myself when it comes to the laws governing this sector. However, such a person would be more focused on the technical side of the role and less so on the practical side of doing business in this sector. Hence, my biggest strength is that I have experience working on both sides of the business – the management and control sides.

Despite focusing my time on these other roles,  I will still remain involved in the investment and portfolio management side of the business. Thus, I plan to continue posting articles relating to investment ideas and education when time permits. I will also however be uploading post related to the other area I am involved in.

To a certain extent my progression into the areas of Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) came along unintentionally. Over recent years the requirements in these fields has increased a lot within the financial services industry. Since I have been predominantly engaged with smaller entities throughout my career I have had to deal with various aspects of these fields through my various roles. As many of you know, when working within small and medium sized entities one tends to need to take responsibility of many tasks and not just what was on the job description. To someone like me who relishes the chance of learning new things and gets bored easily with the status quo this has lead me to gain expertise in different areas.

In reality, there are many similarities when it comes to analyzing an investment for a client (Investment Advice/Analysis and Portfolio Management) and being part of the GRC side of the business. All these areas involve getting to know the entity well enough to assess where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats lie. When it comes to investing your end decision would be whether or not the investment is worthwhile from a risk-reward perspective and how it fits into your overall portfolio, objectives and financial constraints. When it comes to GRC your end decisions will be on how to lower/manage the risk side and increase the reward side of the business in order for it to be more worthwhile for the owners of the entity and the other stakeholders. So the basic issue is always about analyzing the risk-reward trade off within the different contexts.

Hence, if you or someone you know are looking for an experienced individual to fill any of the roles I offer or would like to discuss anything related to these fields please feel free to contact me by email on kyle@financebykd.com, on Mobile (also through WhatsApp & Telegram): (356) 7985 1810, Skype: kyle.debono or LinkedIn