John Cheah has 24 years of working experience with a career that spanned being at an international consultancy and 3 foreign banks. He spent 4 years in external audit and 20 years in banking, where he specialised in Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT). His audit experience included performing internal and external audits at various types of companies, especially at insurance firms.

His banking career saw him covering multiple roles within the AML/CFT Compliance function. This included policy advisory, transaction monitoring, suspicious transaction reporting, procedures development and other related areas. He spent the last 10 years of his career developing and enhancing the AML/CFT framework of a commercial bank, which included pioneering an AML/CFT review team, designing AML/CFT risk assessments for branches and the entity, as well as running the bank’s AML/CFT training programme for all segments within the organisation.

John has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of London and was an ACCA member. He moved into the space of Financial Crime Compliance soon after and has been a certified member of the Association of Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) since 2011. He also holds the Advanced Diploma in AML/CFT issued jointly by the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers and International Compliance Association. John is also a HRD Corp certified trainer.

On the personal front, John enjoys public speaking and achieved the Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) status from the global organisation Toastmasters International in 2012.