We are very fortunate to have the Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Nicholas Macpherson, delivering the ACT’s Autumn Paper on 24 November. This really is an exceptional opportunity to hear from one of the UK’s most senior civil servants and somebody so closely involved with economic and financial policy. Nicholas will take questions from attendees and for me this further underlines the value and interest in joining us for the evening. We do still have spaces available – members can sign up here and I encourage you to consider inviting your own guests as well.
We continue to have a strong pipeline of events, with the Securitisation Masterclass on 17 November being one that I certainly hope you will consider coming to. Whilst securitisation has been around for a long time my impression is that as a financing tool it has not ceased to evolve in sophistication, complexity and potential value to its users. We have an excellent set of speakers and as always at our events there is a strong emphasis on the sharing of practical experience.
I mentioned last month that we were about to launch a qualification in pensions and we have now announced the Certificate in Risk Management for Pensions (CertRMP). This qualification is both a standalone certificate – in the same vein as the existing ones in International Cash Management (CertICM) and in Financial Mathematics and Modelling (CertFMM) – and also an eligible module within the range of papers at the Associate level for the AMCT qualification. I do believe the new pensions qualification will have wide appeal and I do not have to underline how timely and topical the subject is.
The internationalisation of our professional qualifications continues and in 2006 we are offering the one week teaching programme for CertICM in another new location – Singapore. This initiative has benefited from an excellent cooperation with the Singapore ACT. In building the range of locations where CertICM is made more accessible we continue to reinforce the qualification’s global recognition – something that I take very seriously in terms of the expectations of past as well as future candidates.
Another area in which the education team is active at present is in the consideration of how the MCT qualification can evolve and develop. We have an excellent team of MCT holders and outside suppliers working with us and I am confident that we will in due course be able to unveil an attractive series of changes to what is and should remain the flagship qualification of the ACT. As I write this I am about to leave for the annual meeting of the IGTA, which is the international grouping of treasury associations. We have an interesting agenda for our meeting, with a significant emphasis on identifying how treasury associations can and should help their members develop their careers – and also on what should be the core areas of focus for a treasury association. Although I would argue that the treasury associations internationally are in a real sense defined by their very differences – with the ACT standing out by virtue of its size and the depth of its resource – there are nonetheless some key areas where we can still benefit from sensible cooperation. I hope to be able to report back on what emerges from the IGTA meeting.
Finally in a little over a week we will get together with many members and friends of the ACT at the Annual Dinner. I greatly look forward to seeing a large number of familiar faces there.
