About our CFA affiliation and scholarships

Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) Institute is the global association of investment professionals that sets the standard for professional excellence and administers the industry gold standard CFA charter. The organisation is a champion for ethical behaviour in investment markets and a respected source of knowledge in the global financial community. CFA Institute has more than 160,000 members in 166 countries.

For more information, visit the CFA Institute website.

The CFA Program sets a standard for developing the skills, standards, competence, and integrity of financial analysts, portfolio managers, investment advisers, and other investment professionals worldwide. It is widely considered the investment profession’s most rigorous credentialing program. Administered in English, the CFA curriculum and examinations are identical worldwide. Fewer than one in five candidates who begin the program successfully complete it and go on to earn the coveted CFA charter, the “gold standard” for investment professionals. The top employers of CFAs globally include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, and BlackRock.

To become a CFA Charterholder, students need to pass three levels of CFA exams, submit reference letters, achieve qualified work experience and submit an application.

As the University of Vaasa has an affiliation with CFA, it confirms that the curriculum of Masters’ Degree in Finance covers at least 70% of the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK) and emphasises the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice within the programme. The coverage of at least 70% helps students prepare for the CFA exams because they already have a lot of knowledge on those issues that will be asked in the exams.

The core CBOK curriculum includes the following topics:

• ethical and professional standards
• quantitative methods
• economics
• financial reporting and analysis
• corporate finance
• equity investments
• fixed income
• derivatives
• alternative investments
• portfolio management and wealth planning

Students of Master’s Degree Programme in Finance can get scholarships to pay the overall fees applied to those who try to pass CFA exams. For example, the normal one-time enrollment fee for registering for CFA Program and level I exam (that is not applied to subsequent exams) is USD 450. Further exam registration fee for each of the levels is USD 700 with an early bird registration or USD 1,000 with standard registration.

Being a CFA-affiliated university, the University of Vaasa is eligible to provide its students with 6 scholarships per year for taking CFA exams.

The CFA student scholarship waives the one-time enrollment fee (USD 450) and discounts the exam registration fee to USD 350. This means that students may save up to USD 1,000 by receiving the CFA scholarship. Students do not receive cash/money transfers and the scholarship is used via a provided link while registering for the exam. Students also receive full access to the CFA curriculum and all available study tools for preparing for the CFA exam.

When applying for a CFA scholarship, students need to provide a full CV. The CFA scholarship application deadlines are regularly sent to the students of the Master’s Degree programme in Finance by representatives of the University of Vaasa.

A full guide (pdf) on how to apply for a CFA scholarship is provided by the CFA Institute.

The CFA scholarship is valid for one year from the date of receiving it. Students should still register/enrol for the exam before the expiration date. It is the students’ responsibility to be aware of and abide by the important exam dates.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students work in teams to research and analyse a publicly traded company. Each team writes a research report on their assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and the best teams are asked to present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals.

The first-ever CFA Institute Research Challenge competition was hosted by the New York Society of Security Analysts in 2002 and involved just five teams from the New York area. Since then, the competition has grown to involve tens of thousands of students from over 1,000 universities in more than 80 countries.

The competition consists of a local final in Finland, Northern Europe sub-regionals, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) regional finals and the global final.

More information on the challenge is on the CFA Institute website.

Attending the competition has several benefits for the university and the students as it:

• Provides career opportunities for students
• Gives students practical training equity research and exposure to industry experts
• Adds a lot to classroom learning
• Extends the network with professionals, peers from other universities, and others in the community
• Helps to represent the university on a global scale and improve its reputation

The University of Vaasa encourages students to participate in the CFA Research Challenge. One to two teams representing the University of Vaasa participate in the CFA Research Challenge on an annual basis. Based on the results of the provided report, students can get up to 5 ECTS to their studies. The quality and sufficiency of the report are preliminarily evaluated by a university advisor.