The fast-moving corporate services firm is making compliance a priority, hiring in three regions.

Corporate services giant Vistra has added three personnel at director level to its compliance team. Stephen Costello has joined as regional compliance director for Americas & Caribbean; Salima Fajal assumes the same position for Europe; as does Nico Van Bockstal for India, Middle East and Africa. Their roles will focus on setting direction and overseeing Vistra’s internal compliance strategy in the respective regions, the Hong-Kong based firm said. All roles are effective immediately and they will report to the group’s chief compliance officer Tanya Scott-Tomlin.

Scott-Tomlin said it has been a “strategic priority” of the firm to strengthen its compliance team. “The increase in regulatory requirements across all sectors in recent years means that it is even more critical for international businesses to stay compliant,” she said.

Van Bockstal currently heads Vistra’s governance, risk, compliance and finance consultancy team for the Middle East, where its scope is helping clients obtain regulatory licences and advising them on anti-money laundering requirements, KYC, and data protection controls. He joined Vistra following its acquisition of Dubai-based Total Solutions Middle East in 2017. Before moving to Dubai, he was head of compliance for Société Générale private banking and for Bank J Van Breda & Co, based in Belgium.

Costello on the Americas beat has spent two decades in the financial services industry having worked with JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Brown Brothers Harriman, and US Trust Co. Most recently, he was compliance officer and director of investor services for Vistra in the US.

Fajal joins Vistra with 15 years’ international experience, with a focus on alternative investments and fund administration. Before that, she worked for Natixis, Ipes (now Apex Group) and Campbell Lutyens on a number of regulatory projects. She is a qualified French lawyer having previously practised in both Paris and London.

The compliance remit comes at a time when Vistra is seeing high levels of growth, with a presence now in 46 jurisdictions. Earlier this month, it completed its rebrand of London Legalisation Services (LLS), the London-based legal and consular services firm Vistra purchased in 2015. It has developed a pattern of targeting corporate and legal services businesses in key markets as a quick way of establishing local knowledge and rebranding those entities under the Vistra label. The group made changes at the top in April when Alan Brown came on as group chief executive and Geoff Weir as group chief financial officer, both leading growth at the organisation from Hong Kong.