A Q&A with Director of 4most India, Prosenjit Paul

1. How did you come to work at 4most and head up the India 4most office?

In a previous role, I had an opportunity to partner with 4most on a few of the projects I was managing in South-East Asia. I remember thinking that what I liked about 4most was how knowledgeable everyone was and their values. I felt like this was reflected in everyone I interacted with. So, when the opportunity came up to work at 4most, I grabbed it.

I have a total of 23 years of experience in analytics, predominantly in risk analytics and specifically in regulation. I have worked in a bank, an offshore team of a multinational bank, and also in a consultancy, I’ve basically had a taste of all sides, and each side gave me a different opportunity to learn.

I joined 4most as I realised that my responsibility would be multi-directional, and it would give me an immense learning opportunity. I also got to work with the talent I had the experience of working with in my previous role, so it was win-win.

Setting up a new offshore analytics team in India wasn’t new for me, as I did a similar thing in my previous organisation, but what stood out was the trust 4most management gave me right from day one. This one line changed my whole perspective, “Take steps as if it is your own company”. It allowed me to think of 4most as a family rather than just my office. Since then, there has been no looking back; with fantastic support from the whole team, 4most India is growing fast.

2. Compared to the UK market, what is the India risk market like?

The UK and India are two different countries, and obviously, on one side, there are differences in the culture of people, and on the other side, there is a vast difference in banking regulations and its enforcement.

One big advantage in India is numerous multi-national banks have large offshore units here in India, so analytics professionals are not only aware of the regulations of India, but also banking regulations in regions like UK, Europe, Middle East, the US etc. This makes it easier for both UK and India colleagues to share experiences, knowledge, and ideas. 4most India is integrated with 4most UK as an extended part of a family. The processes, learning opportunities, policies, benefits etc. are all exactly the same. This consistency brings many benefits.

3. What kind of projects are being delivered by the India-based team?

We are focussing on several projects across UK, Europe and Middle East geographically. In terms of the nature of the projects, the team is primarily involved in projects related to Credit Risk scorecards, IRB & IFRS9 model development, validation & monitoring, Credit strategy development and creating training modules.

The team is also involved in validation of Fraud Risk, Compliance Risk, Stress testing models, Gap assessments of the bank’s model risk management as mandated in Central bank regulations covering models across all kinds of risks.

Recently, a tier 1 bank in the Middle East has outsourced its model validation activity to 4most, which is primarily being done by the 4most India team.

So the answer is lots of projects!

4. Tell us your favourite part of your day

I love watching the team interact with each other and debate on a topic. It can be on a project delivery, or a technical topic or just a general discussion. They are all so proud of what they do, and it shows.

5. So, what’s next for 4most India?

A bright future. We are going to be around 20 people by the year-end, which is great. For the first two years, we focussed on setting up the team in India, making sure we gained the right people with the right experience, and now we have this, we are in growth mode. We are also growing our client base in UK, Europe and Middle East, to name some of the key regions. We are also expanding the range of services we offer to our clients, so this is a very exciting time for the team.

6. Finally, what advice do you have for someone embarking on a risk career in India

I have a few important tips to share – Risk is a vast topic. There are different types of Risk – Credit Risk, Market Risk, Fraud Risk, Compliance Risk, Operations Risk and Climate Risk. Some risks, like Credit Risk, will be for different product groups of the banks, like Retail or Corporate product groups. Within each product group, there are several products. Then there are regulations e.g., IRB, IFRS9, Model Risk Management and each of them have their own objectives. These regulations will be country-specific as Central Banks of different countries will have different regulations and requirements.

Therefore, it is not easy to master every aspect of risk. Anyone who wants to embark on a risk career should focus on becoming a master in a few areas of risk based on his/her expertise. Risk is an area which values specialists more rather than generalists. So whatever opportunity comes, it needs to be fully utilised to learn deeper – instead of blindly following steps, one should question why that step was required – not only from a technical perspective, but from a business perspective as well.