Carmel joins Abana after an exemplary career with RENAISSANCE CAPITAL GROUP (financial services group), Moscow, Russia and then latterly with  ABN AMRO BANK (now part of RBS Group), Hong Kong.

Executive Director Regional Head of Legal and Compliance Asia Pacific (inc Japan, Australia/New Zealand)

Head of Legal and Compliance Hong Kong office

ANB Amro  -a global bank with headquarters in Holland (for retail banking and private wealth and asset management) and in London (for investment banking).  The Asia Pacific offices, headquartered in Hong Kong, engaged in the full spectrum of business including debt and equity capital markets, equity sales and trading, corporate finance, structured products, global trade services, derivatives, institutional lending, securitisations, retail and commercial banking, private client and wealth management.

Responsible for legal and compliance for the wholesale clients and retail banking operations of ABN AMRO Bank in Asia Pacific.

Management – solely responsible for the recruitment, training and establishment in Hong Kong of a regional head office covering Asia Pacific (13 countries) of 16 lawyers, compliance officers and support staff to oversee the business of ABN AMRO in Hong Kong and Asia Pacific; direct reports from country heads of legal and compliance in 12 other Asia Pacific countries including Japan and Australia; ex Hong Kong, responsible for 40 other full and part time regional compliance officers and lawyers in Asia Pacific; at the request of the Global Head of Legal and Compliance in January 2003 assumed role of Regional Head of Compliance Asia Pacific in order to further develop compliance controls in Hong Kong and regionally; key member of the Hong Kong and Asia regional management committee.

Compliance – ultimate compliance responsibility and sign off for all aspects of ABN AMRO’s business in Hong Kong and all regional ABN AMRO offices including wholesale clients division, retail banking and asset management; introduction and updating of Compliance manuals for 7 product lines, staff trading (including drafting rules, implementation and surveillance for 900 Hong Kong based employees and for regional offices); personal compliance issues for employees (fit and proper regulatory status of all registered employees and fit and proper conduct as employees of ABN AMRO ); in depth review of and implementation of extensive Chinese walls controls across all product lines and business units of ABN AMRO; sales and trading monitoring and surveillance for equity and treasury products and all derivative products; annual training for all Hong Kong based employees (approx 900) and Hong Kong and regional compliance officers; client equity and treasury products research compliance; corporate finance and equity capital markets transaction compliance; corporate lending and structured product compliance; management of all regulatory investigations and all on site regulatory inspection visits and off site enquiries for retail banking business; introduction, implementation and conducting training for new regulatory regimes;  primary contact person for all Hong Kong regulatory bodies; extensive contact with SFC ( for wholesale client business) and Hong Kong monetary authority (for retail banking); audit compliance (all aspects of supervisory controls for ABN AMRO Bank Head Office audit inspection team visits); anti money laundering – compliance with local and regional anti money laundering rules; managed Hong Kong and Asia Pacific implementation of ABN AMRO global policies;

Legal – ultimate legal sign off and supervision of lawyers and legal management of the full spectrum of ABN AMRO’s business operations in Hong Kong together with Asia Pacific regional supervisory responsibility for all legal and compliance issues emanating from any of the regional offices. Responsible for supervision of legal aspects of all regulatory issues.