Career prospects as Fund Manager or as Analyst:

Introduction:

Once the private players kick off their operations from September, the total headcount of analysts at all levels will be around 500. Depending on the government’s policies and growth rate of the industry, the demand for professionals is likely to rise at around 25-30 per cent annually. Currently, investment avenues for pension funds are restricted to central and state government securities, special deposit schemes, bonds of public sector undertakings and public sector financial institutions, and certificates of deposit with banks. Experts think that the plan to have multiple fund managers for the scheme will help generate higher returns and bring about greater professionalism. This is a very specialised domain and only the best and the brightest operate here.

Overview about Job prospects:
This is an exciting opportunity up for grabs in the financial services sector. The recent decision of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to open fund management to three private sector fund managers—HSBC AMC (Asset Management Company), ICICI Prudential and Reliance Capital—has promised to deliver more jobs for fund managers and research analysts. Fund managers are in demand typically; pension funds invest long-term contractual savings in various financial instruments. As directed by EPFO, fund managers will not be able to invest in stocks. However, there is a proposal to allow fund managers to invest in equity
instruments as an option, thus, reducing the burden on the exchequer. The number of equity and debt researchers required by fund houses will largely depend on the government guidelines on the investment patterns. Until now, the state-run State Bank of India has solely managed EPFs, but the government now wants to foster competition and ensure higher returns for its 43 million subscribers. “Initially, the EPFO will ask the fund managers to manage the incremental deposits only.

Career Path: Research Analyst, Fund Manager, and Chief Investment Officer

Who’s hiring: Reliance Capital, ICICI Prudential, HSBC and SBI

Who’re they hiring?
1. Chartered Accountants (CAs),
2. Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs), and
3. MBAs, preferably in Finance

At what levels:
· Junior Research Analyst,
· Research Analyst (over three years of work experience),
· Senior Research Analyst (5-6 years of work experience),
· Fund Managers (over 10 years work experience), and
· Chief Investment Officer (15 or more years of work experience)

Basic skills required:
· Graduation
· MBA (Finance) or Chartered Accountancy degree or Certified Financial Analyst

Remuneration:
Research Analysts can expect to start their career with a remuneration of about Rs.3-6 lakh per annum.

Crisil Certified Analyst Programme (CCAP) – Career as a Analyst

Introduction:
CRISIL Certified Analyst Programme (CCAP) is conducted by CRISIL (a Standard & Poor company) to bridge the gap of industry requirement and college education. It is one of the best alternatives to traditional finance programmes, which lead to a career in security research. The minimum eligibility is graduation in any stream, with guaranteed placement at CRISIL and above all the course fees is nil (Crisil only charges a one time application fees of Rs.1,000/-).

CRISIL Certified Analyst Programme is a two-year intensive entry-level programme. It combines coursework, job assignments and interactive seminars that equip the learner with exceptional financial and business skills. The programme is aimed at developing world-class financial professionals for Analyst positions in CRISIL.

Main features of the course:
The CCAP structure has been arrived at after a thorough research of the existing curriculum of MBA, CA, CFA and ICWA programmes apart from the Indian and global business needs. It encompasses equipping interns with the capabilities enumerated above, in addition to providing hands-on, on-the-job training. This ensures that each CCAP intern is highly capable of succeeding within CRISIL as well as elsewhere in the industry.

Eligibility:
The minimum requirement for admission to the Programme is:
. A bachelor's degree with at least 50 percent marks or the equivalent Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). Candidates appearing for the final bachelor's degree/equivalent examination may also apply.
. The candidate must have appeared for CAT or XAT. In case the candidate has not appeared / applied for any of these exams, they will be required to appear for the CRISIL Aptitude Test that is usually held in March.
. The candidate should not be more than 27 years of age.

Batch Size: 75 students

Programme Location: Mumbai

Programme Structure:
The two-year programme comprises four semesters, with two semesters in each year. During the first month of the programme, the student will attend classes full time (Monday to Friday) to complete the fundamental courses in finance as part of the induction process. Once the induction process is completed, the classes will be held twice a week (9 AM to 6 PM on Fridays and Saturdays). On other week days (Monday to Thursday), the students will work in assigned business units of CRISIL as part of the Internship.

The programme will cover 24 subjects in finance, in addition to courses in communication, language and personality development. The programme uses a continuous evaluation process to assess the learning outcomes of the various courses.

Fees:
CRISIL does not charge any course fees for the programme apart from the application fees of Rs.1,000/-.

Placement / Career Path:
On successful completion of the programme, candidates are guaranteed placement within CRISIL on the levels of management trainees.

For further details and enquiry log on to http://www.crisil.com/ccap/index.html