Notes from a Warm Island
I had the pleasure of visiting Cyprus recently to deliver a training session for the Association of Cypriot Bankers on Derivatives. Now, for most people a full day of derivatives would be enough to necessitate a trip to the doctors, but the 21 people on the course really enjoyed it!
Out of 21 people in the room 12 were qualified to CFA level. This is the Chartered Financial Analyst programme, which is widely accepted as the gold standard of industry qualifications for finance professionals. The fact that half of the people there were qualified to this level blew me away. In Jersey, I am led to believe that we have around 100 CFA Charterholders, out of 12,000 finance professionals. The room for growth in these numbers is obvious and so it was whilst I was in Cyprus that I made the decision Jersey International Business School should launch the qualification this year.