Workers in the financial sector will be able to upgrade their skills and identify new opportunities in coming days, thanks to a new initiative by the Financial Industry Career Advisory Centre.

The Financial Services Week is staging a range of events, including an industry expert series, featuring talks by leading professionals covering opportunities and trends in specific areas of the industry. In mentoring sessions, participants can talk with experts in smaller groups.

A workshop will offer practical career advice for professionals, managers and executives while a job fair on Friday, the last day, will showcase around 250 positions.

The sessions are being held at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Centre in Marina Boulevard, with registration on the NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute's website.

Mr Manoj Chugani, who has been looking for a job in the financial sector for a few months, hopes the Financial Services Week will allow him to identify the specific skills he needs.

"I have a master's degree in applied finance but no direct experience so I don't know how my knowledge applies in practice," he said. "I hope I will get some insights out of the industry expert series so I know the skills the industry is looking for and work in those directions."

Mr Patrick Tay, who is co-chair of the Financial Sector Tripartite Committee, spoke at the opening of the week-long event and also announced the launch of the company-initiated Professional Conversion Programme (PCP).

The committee set up the Financial Industry Career Advisory Centre last year.

The Professional Conversion Programme, to be administered by Workforce Singapore (WSG), aims to help people looking to become compliance professionals.

Participating firms will receive funding from the WSG for salary support and training subsidies.

Companies will be able to work with the WSG to develop training plans customised to the needs of their specific organisation.

"Financial institutions will be able to identify specific training needs and train new hires without the relevant working experience or re-skill mid-career switchers."

While this programme can be targeted at new hires, Mr Tay added that existing employees can also benefit.

"Given the changing skills the industry requires, employers can use the company-initiated PCP to redeploy their existing employees across their organisation instead of making them redundant."