PRMIA to offer rival exam to Garp

The Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA) will launch its own certified risk manager programme in competition with the financial risk manager (FRM) exam offered by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (Garp).

The PRMIA programme will start in August, with entrants being charged $295 – a similar cost to the Garp exam. Entrants should ultimately be able to sit the exams on any day of the working week, said PRMIA. The association plans to provide reading lists from April, and it is expected that candidates should spend about three months preparing for the exam. PRMIA said it will automatically award all previous FRM graduates with its new qualification.

Areas of study will include courses on the history of risk management, PRMIA’s code of conduct, market, credit and operational risk and an asset and liability management module.

“We want to surpass the FRM qualification in terms of quality and prestige,” said David Koenig, chairman of PRMIA’s interim board.

Separately, PRMIA said it had added regional chapters for Mexico and the Ukraine, taking the total number of chapters to 28. Jorge Galindo-Flores heads Mexico and Gennady Bortnikov will run the Ukraine.

Galindo-Flores is a senior manager of Andersen’s Mexican branch, Ruiz, Urquiza y Cia, and was formerly the head of the risk analysis unit at Banco de Mexcio. Bortnikov is a risk consultant with Kiev-based Raiffeisen Investment Ukraine, and formerly worked at the World Bank’s Kiev office.

Koenig told RiskNews he was surprised with the speed of chapter establishment, adding that he expects another seven chapters, mainly in Europe and Asia, by the end of the year.