Demand of investment professionals is at all time high, says CFA expert
Published: Mar 22, 2010 22:46 Updated: Mar 22, 2010 22:46
MANAMA: With the changing dynamics of the economic climate globally, the demand of qualified investment professionals is at all time high, an expert at CFA Institute said.
Nitin Mehta, managing director CFA Institute for Europe Middle East and Africa, who is in Bahrain to attend a CFA Investment Conference which opens on Monday, said the demand of investment professional was all time due to the challenges being faced by the global economy.
Especially in the wake of the financial crisis, he said, CFA is organizing more conferences to create awareness about the institute and its objectives aimed at helping the global financial community.
Mehta, who was joined by CFA Director Steven Wellard, said the Bahrain Investment Conference proved to be a great success as over 200 professionals would discuss, share and talk during a one-day event about the challenges faced by the financial community.
"This is strange that people talk about health management and nobody talks about the wealth management as how their investments are taken care of by the individuals and institutions," Mehta added.
"CFA is trying to forge alliances and partnerships with the regulators and the governments in the GCC to broaden the scope of our activities," he said.
Recently CFA, he said, signed an agreement with Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority.
"The CFA Institute Center for Financial Market Integrity addresses issues of fairness, efficiency and investor protection in global capital markets and promotes high standards of ethics, integrity and professional excellence within the investment community. With staff in New York, London, Brussels, Hong Kong and Charlottesville (Virginia), the center possesses both the resources and geographical perspective to continue decades of advocacy work by CFA Institute in the global investment community. Employers who adopt the voluntary codes and guidelines put forth by the center are taking significant proactive steps, affirming their commitment to ethical practices and placing client interests first," he said.
"The center provides guidelines on such important issues as code of ethics and standards of professional conduct; global investment performance standards extensible business reporting language; asset manager code of professional conduct."
"We are seeking more MoUs and agreements with the Capital Markets Authority of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region."
"CFA's mission is to lead the investment profession globally by setting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence. It has nearly 100,000 members, including 88,000 CFA charter holders and 136 member societies worldwide," Mehta said while talking about the CFA.
"Of these, only around one in five will go on to earn the CFA designation and become a charter holder. CFA Institute works with over 30 recognized educational establishments as CFA Program Partners in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region."
Earlier, CFA Bahrain and Barclays Global Investors hosted key event to discuss $890 billion international ETF's market.
The ETF event was addressed by experts from abroad and within Bahrain's investment and financial community who discussed a range of issues and opportunities associated with Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
Within the current market, ETFs have become one of the popular investment tools in the investment banking industry, providing an investment vehicle which offers the ability to trade on commodities, stock and bonds. ETFs have become a very popular investment tool over the past few years and the ETF market has seen significant growth from $800 million in 1993 to $890.5 billion in 2009.
