Jan
Bester, CGSS
Jan Bester has been working in the banking environment for 46 years. He spent a number of years working in the branch network, and about 13 years managing one of the head office training functions.
He was involved in risk and compliance management in its various forms, including Credit risk and Operational risk. He was part of the implementation team when the FIC Act was promulgated in 2002. He became involved in the management of Financial Crime risk in 2006 and was appointed as the Head of Sanctions for Absa Africa subsidiary of Barclays Group in 2008. During the past 13 years Jan was involved in the AML / KYC processes and Sanctions risk management, from a strategic perspective to deep technical and process design and alert investigation.
Jan is doing consulting work in the AML and Sanctions. He currently (2020 to 2022) holds the position of Group Sanctions Manager for FirstRand Group.
Apart from contract work, Jan is also involved in several ACAMS lectures across various AML/CTF related topics.
He holds a B.Com degree with majors in Economics and Industrial Psychology. Post graduate qualifications include a certificate in Money Laundering Control issued by University of Johannesburg, Certificate in Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management issued by UNISA.
He also holds the ACAMS Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and Certified Global Sanctions Specialist (CGSS) designations.