Firms pool together to train up Scotland's fund accountants
Scotland's big investment operations firms are teaming up to offer a fund accounting qualification in a bid to ensure there's standardisation across the industry and the country has an increasingly deep pool of talent.
Scottish Investment Operations (SIO) is working with the likes of JPMorgan, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup HSBC Securities Services and State Street to develop the new qualification north of the border with a view to rolling it out to the rest of the UK.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland and the Chartered Institute of Bankers are also helping create the syllabus, which will involve everything from the fundamentals of accounting transactions to the valuation of more complex products.
"There's a fairly big need for this," claims Alan Thornburrow, chief executive of SIO. "It allows all firms to put staff through the same qualification, rather than training them in-house in a similar fashion, which can often involve a lot of mentoring and therefore duplication of roles."
Until recently, there was a lot of movement within the Scottish investment operations sector, with a raft of firms competing over a relatively small number of staff with the requisite skills. Obviously, this has diminished of late, but the new qualification aims to train both new entrants to the industry and ensure existing staff are up to scratch.
Although the Securities & Investment Institute offers a wide-range of qualifications for back office staff, it's yet to create something specifically for fund accounting.
Thorburrow says the SIO qualification will be launched early next year.
