Finance contest slated in October

Philippine universities will get a chance to pit their knowledge in finance against the top universities in the Southeast Asian region in the 10th Inter-Collegiate Finance Competition (ICFC) in Manila slated in Oct. 13, 2008.

Over 70 universities and colleges in the Philippines will be competing against Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University & Assumption University, and Singapore’s National University of Singapore (NUS) & Singapore Management University (SMU).

ICFC is an annual competition of Philippine universities and colleges in the field of finance spearheaded by the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX), a non-stock, non-profit association.

The ICFC aims to benchmark and elevate the standard of finance education in the Philippines. The questions are based on the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 body of knowledge with topics ranging from ethics, corporate finance to economics.

In preparation for the 10th ICFC, CFA Philippines conducted a professors training for all schools that will join the ICFC and also gave CFA curriculum development packages to 45 universities.

The first competition was held in 1999 with 17 schools from the national capital region participating. It was only last year when a foreign school, Singapore Management University, was invited to participate.

Citibank, CFA Philippines, Asian Institute of Management, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and University of the Philippines are among the supporters of ICFC this year.