Per Eldar Søvik: Compliance adds value

Per Eldar Søvik joined the Nordic Investment Bank as Chief Compliance Officer early in 2012. His task is to ensure that NIB meets the high expectations that markets place on it, and that the Bank adheres to the best practices of accountability, transparency and business ethics.

In his role, Søvik reports to NIB’s President and CEO and has direct access to the chairperson of the Bank’s Board of Directors and Control Committee. Søvik also chairs NIB’s Committee on Fighting Corruption, which is responsible for investigating allegations of fraud and corruption.

Prior to NIB, Søvik worked with the African Development Bank (AfDB) from 2006 in Tunisia, where he established and directed its compliance review and mediation mechanism.

Back then, compliance was a new concept to AfDB and Søvik was instrumental in educating the bank’s staff and civil society, says a former colleague, Professor Daniel D. Bradlow, chairperson of the first external expert panel of AfDB’s review mechanism.

“Building credibility was very important to ensure the respect and independence of the compliance and mediation functions,” Bradlow says, “and Mr Søvik was very successful in doing this.”

Since February 2012, Søvik has been working with NIB in Helsinki, a city he knows well.

From 1996 to 2006, Søvik worked for the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) in Helsinki, the hub for common Nordic and Baltic investment instruments. One of his tasks there was to help establish anti-corruption guidelines for the Nordic institution and later to chair its anti-corruption committee.

How did you get into compliance?

“I’ve always had an interest in governance issues. I truly appreciate the way compliance can benefit the functioning of institutions and their relationship with stakeholders.”

Besides having earned a degree in economics and management in his home country Norway, Søvik also has a master’s degree in development economics from the University of Manchester in England, with a focus on the administration of public funds.

After his university studies, Søvik worked in several African countries where he witnessed the many negative consequences stemming from poor education and health services and inadequate infrastructure sites due to the illegal diversion of funds.

“I have seen how destructive corruption can be for social and economic development, so I’m happy now that fighting corruption is once again high on the agenda of international financial institutions.”

He emphasizes that corruption always involves three parties; those who pay bribes, those who take them and those who, in the end, receive reduced or more costly services.

What does compliance contribute to NIB and its stakeholders?

“For NIB, the value of its compliance function is that it seeks to ensure that the Bank is accountable in all instances, and that the projects it finances are of good quality and contributing to economic and social development that benefits all.”

As an international financial institution, it is important that NIB goes beyond simply providing funds, but also makes sure that the projects it finances really adds value in a sustainable way.

“Compliance really is about adding value to the organisation and its stakeholders.”

However, that is generally not how compliance is always perceived?

“Unfortunately not, and neither do we want to be perceived as watchdogs. Compliance to me is about learning lessons in order to improve performance.”

Søvik reminds that people working with compliance share the same overall goals as other bank staff in bringing the organisation forward. They only use different means.

“A general challenge, as I see it, is how to make people not fear compliance but to see it as an important cooperative partner to achieve these common goals.”

How prepared is NIB to handle compliance issues?

“I’m very pleased that NIB has a policy on fighting corruption with zero tolerance. The Bank should also be proud of adhering to the principles of the uniform framework for preventing and combating fraud and corruption agreed upon by the major IFIs,” Søvik says.

Søvik says that if something goes wrong in a project or within the institution, it is important for NIB to learn about it in order to address the problem.

“For that reason, all NIB staff is obliged to report without delay any suspicion of fraud and corruption to the Chief Compliance Officer.”