Unique Courses: Banking and Finance – Talk money, bulls and bears

An article in Career 360 talks about various courses that will help candidates to build a banking career; along with inputs from Neeti Sharma.

Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University pointed out to Careers360 sometimes back what global companies look for in students. “In today’s modern world, you know it’s not really about all the skills that you know, it’s how quickly you can learn what you need to learn when you start a new job,” he said. Quinlan is bang on target when it comes to Banking and Financial Services as these services require not just functional experts, but those who are quick learners as well.

Manpower requirement

The projected manpower requirement of the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector work force by 2022 is 8.5 million – which is an increase of about 4 – 4.5 million from where we stand today. A number of institutions are offering programmes in collaboration with industry bodies and organisations to fill the gap in demand for qualified professionals in the domain. Neeti Sharma, Senior Vice President TeamLease Services says, “Banking and financial services is one of the burgeoning sectors in the region. By 2017, the region alone is expected to create around 33% of the total employment generated by the BFSI industry. We are confident that such collaborations will not only enable students to take advantage of the opportunity and get gainful employment, it will also create a pool of skilled talent for the industry to recruit from.”

FAME degrees

Broadly concerned with the management of money, finance is one of the subjects very popular at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Finance, Accounting, Management and Economics are commonly referred to as the FAME group of subjects. An undergraduate or postgraduate degree in FAME prepares you for a career in a range of sectors, including banking, financial markets and insurance.

Do you have it in you?

If you have a good academic background with a nose for numbers, you can surely get admission for finance degrees which cover technical and theoretical knowledge. In general, a course in any of the streams of finance will cover topics like how to measure wealth, how finance shape the decisions of companies, government policies etc. Accounting, mathematical methods, macro and microeconomics and IT are all covered under finance degrees. At later stages of specialization, you will get in depth knowledge in taxation, audit, business strategy, business and employment law, management accounting, advanced accounting theory and risk management. Your job roles could be in commercial or consumer banking, investment banking, managing wealth, insurance, capital markets or even real estate.

Select courses in B&F

Though a number of BBA and MBA courses have specialization in Banking and Finance, they majorly cover management aspects rather than specific roles. One the other hand some programmes run in collaboration with banks or the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) are sort of customized programmes focused on industry needs and make you job-ready from Day-1. Both the stock exchanges run short-term and long-term programmes on their own or in collaborations with other universities. Federal Manipal School of Banking (FMSB) which is an exclusive partnership forged between Federal Bank and Manipal Global Education services offers Post Graduate Diploma in Banking and Financial Services. Axis Bank Young Bankers is a one year, full-time residential programme conducted at two campuses; Manipal Global Education in Bangalore and Amity Global Business School in Noida.

Popular Courses in Banking and Finance

Course

Institute (Partner)

Postgraduate Diploma in
Banking and Finance

Federal Manipal School of Banking
(Federal Bank)

Post Graduate Program in Banking & Finance (PGPBF)

BSE Institute Ltd

Axis Bank Young Banker’s Program

Manipal Global Education Services & Amity Global Business School (Axis Bank)

MBA – Finance & Banking

NIIT University (ICICI Bank)

BBA (Financial Management) with Specialization in Capital Markets

Ganpat University (NSE)

BBA (Hons.) in Financial Markets

ITM University, Gwalior (NSE)

Note: Some of the programmes may not have AICTE approval though they are valued in the job market

Vocation focused courses

There are also vocationally inclined programmes like those launched by Tata Institute of Social Sciences -School of Vocational Education (TISS-SVE). “Most professions have a well-defined and structured academic path. However, when it comes to becoming a Banker or a Loan Officer or Equity Trader etc., the academic path suddenly becomes hazy. There aren’t many universities that offer formal qualifications to help students build successful careers in the Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) domain,” says Thyagarajan Balasubramanian, Vertical Anchor, Stratadigm Education & Training Pvt. Ltd (TISS SVE). “It is in this background that we have launched BFSI-focused, industry-relevant, short-term and long-term courses at the UG, PG and Certifications level. The industry-academia relationship has been taken to a new level by us,” he added.

Thyagarajan BalasubramanianThyagarajan Balasubramanian,
Vertical Anchor,
Stratadigm Education & Training Pvt. Ltd, TISS SVE

There aren’t many universities that offer formal qualifications to help students build successful careers in the Banking, Financial Services & Insurance domain. The few that do offer BFSI courses do not seem to have an industry-aligned curriculum or seem to focus more on theoretical aspects. It is in this background, that TISS-SVE has launched BFSI-focused, industry-relevant courses of various duration.

Employment sectors

Banking sector roles include roles in core banking, retail, private, corporate, investment, cards, etc. Financial Services may include stockbroking, payment gateways, and mutual funds. A lot of data processing, application testing and software development activities are outsourced to companies that specialize in this domain.

While Digital banking is progressively becoming the preferred way of conducting banking transactions, it brings with it the threats of data security, hacking, password thefts etc. Owing to the sensitivity of customer-information and increasing information security threats, information security expertise is another key area for banks. This is yet another area where professionals with requisite experience can pursue a banking career.