Largest Association of Investment Professionals Adds Crypto to Curriculum

CFA Institute, with over 150,000 members, is adding cryptocurrency topics to its curriculum for the first time. The course material will be released in August. A record 227,031 people in 91 countries and territories reportedly registered to take CFA exams this year.

Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space

Crypto Added to CFA Curriculum

The world’s largest association of investment professionals, CFA Institute, “is adding topics on cryptocurrencies and blockchain to its Level I and II curriculums for the first time next year,” Bloomberg reported.

A global, not-for-profit organization, CFA Institute offers a range of education and career resources including the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and the Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement (CIPM) designations. Its membership stood at 156,800 at the end of FY2017.

Citing that a majority of the candidates came from Asia, the news outlet elaborated:

A record 227,031 people in 91 countries and territories registered to take CFA exams in June…Material for the 2019 exams will be released in August, giving candidates their first opportunity to start logging a recommended 300 hours of study time.

Crypto – ‘Not a Passing Fad’

The CFA curriculum is organized into three levels. Level I tests “knowledge of the ethical and professional standards.” Level II tests how these standards are applied to situations analysts face. Level III tests how they are applied “in a portfolio management and compliance context.”

Each level currently consists of 10 topics such as quantitative methods, economics, corporate finance, equity management, fixed income, derivatives, and alternative investments.

The crypto addition is part of a new reading called Fintech in Investment Management, Bloomberg conveyed. The institute decided to include it “after industry participants showed surging interest in surveys and focus groups.”

Stephen Horan, the institute’s managing director for general education and curriculum in Charlottesville, Virginia, explained that “the CFA material on crypto and blockchain will appear alongside other fintech subjects including artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and automated trading.” Citing that “more crypto topics, such as the intersection of virtual currencies and economics, may eventually be added to the curriculum,” he asserted:

We saw the field advancing more quickly than other fields and we also saw it as more durable…This is not a passing fad.

A 27-year-old financial economics student at Columbia University who took the CFA Level I exam in June, Kayden Lee, was quoted by the news outlet saying that “it will be beneficial for us since there’s been a huge expansion and adoption of crypto in our investment universe.”

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Images courtesy of Shutterstock and CFA Institute.

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