A Chinese City that is hoping to become the country’s centre of wealth management has chosen UK professional body the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) to provide its qualifications.
Qingdao, a city with a population of nine million, is partnering with CISI to introduce its wealth management exams in the city. The Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) is providing the necessary face-to-face training.
Large global banks in China already use CISI qualifications. The Institute is hoping to expand its market in Qingdao to include local banks and wealth management institutions.
The Qingdao municipal government approached the CISI as part of its strategy to become the centre of wealth management in China.
CISI hopes its qualifications, as part of the tri-partite collaboration, will help Qingdao become a financial powerhouse. It will be launch its first qualification in Qingdao this month, the International Certificate in Wealth and Investment Management (ICWIM), which is considered an industry benchmark, placed at level three on the qualifications registrations framework in the UK.
The Institute expects that 80% of its candidates will be currently employed in banking in China, or from a financial background, with the remainder being made up of students from institutes such as SUFE.
CISI Senior International Manager Hayley Brown said: “Our internationally recognised qualifications can help successful candidates to improve their contribution to their employers, helping them to hit the ground running and therefore make an immediate impact to a business.”
CISI CEO Simon Culhane said: “Learning is for life and professional qualifications offer an opportunity to invest in yourself and your future. Since starting this collaborative project we have seen Qingdao join the Global Finance Centres Index for the first time at number 79 in March 2016. Only a year later it rose to number 38. That’s up 41 places. If Qingdao can only do half the increase next year it will be ahead of Beijing. I am confident that with skilled personnel and the collaboration between CISI, SUFE and the Municipal Government we will begin to see Qingdao rise further up the global financial centres index.
“I would like to commend our education partners, SUFE, who have been unfailingly helpful, pragmatic and action orientated. With the active support of the Dean HUI we can now offer, for the first time in Mandarin, our Certificate in Wealth Management.”
Qingdao sits on China’s east coast and was the site of the 2008 Olympic sailing events.
(pictured above is Simon Culhane, CISI CEO and James HUI, Dean of SUFE)