The Claritas Investment Certificate, which the CFA launched at its annual conference in Singapore, aims at providing a ‘thorough understanding’ of the investment industry and requires between 80 to 100 hours of study over a six month period.
By targeting everyone involved in the sector, from HR and marketing to client services and operations, the CFA’s new certificate is more wide-reaching than the CFA’s graduate level CFA programme, which is intended for those more directly involved in the decision-making process.
Speaking at the launch of the course at the CFA’s annual conference in Singapore, CFA president and CEO John Rogers said that the programme, which took two years to devise, aims to ‘raise professional standards across the industry’ and ‘rebuild public trust’.
John Bowman, CFA, managing director and co-lead of Education for CFA Institute added that the Claritas certificate would be a positive move for companies which wanted to “demonstrate an institutional commitment to ethics, offering employees a strong opportunity to develop their skills and competence in the industry.”
The course will cost firms between $485 – $685 per person (with discounts for bulk registrations) and is made up of seven modules which cover the industry, tools, instruments, structure, controls, client methods, and ethics, culminating in a single self-scheduled, online exam at a proctored testing centre.
Over 40 firms have already agreed to act as pilot participants, including UBS, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Schroders, Credit Suisse and Aviva Investors.
At Aviva Investors the course has already been rolled out across the UK, Dubai and Luxembourg with employers across a spectrum of roles taking part. “So far we have seen an enhanced level of industry knowledge and an increase in awareness of the work taking place across various functions,” said the firm’s learning and development partner Alison Naylor.
