The ICMA Centre at the Henley Business School, The Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) of the US have announced that they have joined forces to support and enhance education, training and certification in financial compliance.

The CISI is the largest and most widely respected professional body for those who work in the securities and investment industry in the UK and abroad. It has developed a suite of well recognised and supported programmes centered around product knowledge and regulation to support practitioners in the financial services industry.

Since 2006, the ICMA Centre and FINRA have developed and offered a highly regarded Diploma in Capital Markets Regulation and Compliance aimed at mid-level securities professionals. With the development of the CISI’s Diploma in Investment Compliance, the industry was faced with two seperately recognised routes to certification, and it was agreed that, by joining forces, the parties can work together to enhance the professional credentials of capital market practitioners in the UK better.

The agreement will mean that those who have already achieved the Diploma in Capital Markets Regulation and Compliance will become members of the CISI and those with a partially completed qualification will receive appropiate exemptions from the jointly supported Diploma in Investment Compliance. In addition, the ICMA Centre will work with the CISI to deliver advanced certification for those who have completed the Diploma in Investment Compliance and whose needs are for expanded coverage of topics required by senior compliance staff on financial institutions. Additional details will be published at cisi.org in the future.

In announcing this new collaboration, Simon Culhane, Chartered FCSI and CEO of the CISI said: “We are very pleased to be working with the ICMA Centre and FINRA – two highly respected institutions that have a long history in capital markets education and training.”

About the ICMA Centre
The ICMA Centre at Henley Business School, University of Reading has an international reputation for being the premier institution in Europe for academic and executive education for financial markets, including studies into investment management,corporate finance leading to students attaining their financial degrees.

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The ICMA Centre has proved that it is one of the top finance schools in the world, coming joint 4th out of a field of 44 international schools in the 2010 Rotman International Trading Competition held at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. This result is in line with the ICMA Centre’s track record of finishing in the top 10, and usually top 5, in all previous Rotman competitions.

The team of four traders – Ioannis Oikonomou, Dimitris Korovilas, Aditya Pandit and Juan Cepeda Murcia – beat a veritable who’s who of corporate finance schools to take joint fourth place. Top place went to MIT while the closest European university was Luiss University which came 30th, and the next UK school was CASS Business School which was ranked in 33rd place.

The competition involved a series of different assessed cases that required trading either in an electronic environment or in the trading pit. Competitors had to trade a variety of financial instruments including corporate bonds, energy futures, stocks that were simultaneously traded in different markets, and futures on a stock index.

“As recent events in world markets have shown only too clearly, skill and competence in trading and analysis are critical both to success and to survival in modern markets. This result shows that our graduates are among the best in the world and that the time and effort invested in our dealing rooms and our trading simulation software (ICTrader) was well spent – to the benefit of us and future members of the finance professions,” said Dr Michael Smith, dealing room director at the ICMA Centre.

“Making it to the top of the competition requires a very diverse set of skills. One has to be numerical enough to create the appropriate pricing models, and strategic enough to find the most efficient ways to trade,” commented Ioannis.

“Being in the trading pit during the quantitative outcry session and trading against 87 people from top schools, some of them with significant trading experience, was like being thrown into a pool of sharks,” added Dimitris.

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