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SWITZERLAND'S DELICATE BALANCING ACT
Haig Simonian

Three years after it was mooted and more than 12 months after the first steps, Switzerland's plan to create a world class centre for teaching banking and finance is taking shape.
The new Swiss Finance Institute has secured SFr75m ($61m) from the country's powerful Bankers' Association and the SWX Swiss Exchange. With the promise of matching public funds, the pot should swell to SFr150m.
On January 1, Fame - the Genova-based International Centre for Financial Asset Management and Engineering - joined forces with Zurich's Swiss Banking School to create the SFI. With Fame more focused on research and the SBS orientated towards executive education, the combination provided the basis for the integrated school the sponsors wanted. Behind the scenes, a powerful foundation board has been assembled, comprising top bankers from UBS and Credit Suisse, leading lights in cantonal and private banking, as well as three top university rectors.
Separately, a high calibre and internationally representative scientific council and an executive education advisory board have been appointed. They will set priorities, help devise a curriculum and keep the SFI abreast of developments elsewhere.

The SFI is also expected to become a core recruitment ground for Switzerland's financial services companies. And it should simplify and streamline the country's patchwork of academic research and business education in banking and finance - split between more than a dozen state or private sector institutions with little coordination. This month, the broad outlines of the SFI's ambitions were unveiled at an initial news conference, coinciding with the appointment of the first of what should be 30 professors.
Executive education will be headed by Harry Hurzeler, former head of the SBS and now the SFI's chief operating officer. The programme will comprise there "flagship" degrees, along with numerous shorter courses, focused on advanced finance and bank management. Two of the degree programmes will be heavily finance focused, while the third will mix finance with training on broader management skills.

The SFI Master of Science in Quantitative Finance will be for postgraduates looking for a course with an emphatic financial bent. The SFI Master in Banking and Finance is aimed at slightly older students who already have three to four years banking experience and want to hone their financial skills while ganing some management education.
The third degree course will be significantly more management orientated in the form of a part-time executive MBA. Expected participants here will be bankers between 30 and 40 who want to gain a management qualification closely geared to their working lives.
Research, meanwhile, expects to run a large PhD programme with about 20 students a year. Faculty members will also conduct their own research from topics as abstruse as high financial mathematics to more applied subjects.

A formal opening date has yet to be set, pending negotiations between the SFI and Swiss universities. Executive education is expected to kick off with the Master of Science in autumn 2007. The EMBA should follow a year later, with the Master of Banking and Finance programme rounding out the offering in 2009

HAIG SIMONIAN
Tratto dal «Financial Times» del 19 giugno


  • Advanced finance: finanza avanzata
  • Bankers: funzionari di banca
  • Banking: tecnica bancaria
  • Banking experience: esperienza bancaria
  • Bank management: direzione di banca
  • Business education: formazione aziendale
  • Chief operating officer: responsabile operativo
  • Degree course: corso di laurea
  • Degree programmes: progetti di laurea
  • Executive education: formazione dei dirigenti/dirigenziale
  • Financial bent: inclinazione finanziaria
  • Financial mathematics: matematiche finanziarie
  • Financial services companies: societą di servizi finanziari
  • Financial skills: competenze finanziarie
  • Flagship degrees: lauree principali ("flagship" sta altrove per "di bandiera" come in "flagship airline"/compagnia di bandiera)
  • Foundation board: consiglio (di amministrazione) della fondazione (International Center for) "Financial Asset" Gestione e ideazione delle attivitą finanziarie
  • Management education: formazione manageriale
  • Management qualification: qualificazione manageriale
  • Management skills: competenze manageriali
  • Master in Business Administration (MBA): Master in amministrazione aziendale
  • News conference: conferenza stampa
  • Postgraduates: (laureati) specializzando/che si specializza
  • Private sector: settore privato
  • Quantitative finance: finanza quantitativa
  • Recruitment ground: terreno di reclutamento (di personale)
  • Scientific council: comitato scientifico
  • SWX Swiss Exchange: Borsa svizzera con sistema centralizzato elettronico (cfr. il lessico bancario di Ubs.com)
  • (to) Streamline: ottimizzare
  • Training: formazione
  • World class centre: centro di livello internazionale