The Scope of CFA in India
The period of late 1900’s ushered in an era of open boundary trade and communications in India. With the policy of LPG (Liberalization, Globalization and Privatization) coming into the picture, later followed by the encouragement of FDI, cash flow in the market increased. With this, there was a substantial increase in financial services being offered in India and thus has also given a boost to the investment banking sector. Finance as a field, forms a part of every single field from architecture to governments. This is why, careers in finance are looked at as being sterling, yet extremely challenging in nature. As the world progress, there are new avenues opening up for firms to form associations and try to expand their customer base, across boundaries. When it comes to firms involved in financial services like Investment Banking, Portfolio Management or Foreign Exchange Management, having a professional well versed in the field of finance is of utmost importance. These professionals fall under the categories of a financial analyst, chartered accountants, investment bankers and more. The demand for these professionals has been increasing steadily in the recent years. The reason for this mainly is that, these professionals are the guiding force behind the most crucial (financial) decisions of the companies. A basic educational background is sufficient for someone, who is aspiring to be a finance professional. There are a lot of eminent business colleges, offering MBA courses and Masters Courses in Finance for those looking for careers in the same field. But on an afterthought, it may
seem that a 2 years MBA course in not only time consuming, but also not comprehensive enough in terms of the insight provided. This mainly, is the reason why a lot of finance aspirants, decide to opt for a graduate program, which gives them an in-depth insight into the world of finance, this course is called as the Charter Financial Analyst Program. Although it is the ICFAI University in India, which provided this degree previously, but this prestigious designation was originally a notoriety of the CFA Institute of USA. It is said that the CFA degree is the toughest to acquire and a slim statistic of about 38% of the total students, are able to crack the examinations. The eligibility criteria for appearing for this exam is, a bachelor’s degree and a minimum work experience of about four years. Today as it stands, the Chartered Financial Analyst Degree is an internationally acclaimed degree, the possession of which gives a candidate great perks and promotions in the field of finance. There is a lot of scope for the CFA degree, as the starting salary offered herein is around 2.5 lakhs to 20 lakhs p.a on an average. Although it doesn’t just stop at this, the degree gives a lot of profitable experience, but also helps in achieving coveted job profiles in the market. It was recently announced that around 12,117 candidates from India appeared for the CFA exam in June 2016. There are many institutes which offer training to crack this exam, one such institute is Imarticus Learning, and it offers both classroom as well online CFA programs.