Certificate FAME evening session with BCV Executive Board Member

The challenges and opportunities for universal banks offering wealth management services was a key theme in an evening session of CFAME held last Thursday during the final week of the Certificate program.

Participants heard a presentation by BCV Executive Board Member and head of wealth management Christopher Preston (photo, right), who demonstrated that success is not simply correlated with an institutions's size. Founded in 1845 to contribute towards the economic development of the Swiss Canton of Vaud, BCV has solidly outperformed the Swiss stock exchange Banks index during the past 5 years.

Mr Preston described how BCV met challenges such as increasing competition, regulation and client sophistication with a strategy of client focus, team work and an eye for performance.

Midway to CFAME

Participants in the 2008 Certificate in Financial Asset Management and Engineering course (CFAME) have reached the mid point of the 5 week program this week with presentations on Market and Credit Risk Management.

Institute Senior Chair Erwan Morellec and Assistant Professor Tony Berrada presented the tools needed to size up the risks facing financial institutions large and small. Earlier in the week saw presentations by Olivier Scaillet, whose work on estimating outperformance among fund managers featured recently in the New York Times.

CFAME's Class of 2008 displays the international mix so characteristic of program, with two thirds of the class coming from outside Switzerland. I spoke with financial planner Philip Amery (pictured, right), who'd made the journey from Adelaide, Australia and medical graduate Ahmed Alsaleh, and learned about the opportunities available to numerically-savvy financial folks around the globe. Both saw great opportunities in these challenging times.

Very refreshing.