Back to work, fit to work

The return to work at the beginning of January may have been an unusually sobering experience for many of us. The banks have passed the calendar year end without apparent funding pressures but it is clear that difficult times remain. Stress in the financial markets and the wider economic consequences that are following seem together likely to last longer than many had initially expected. With the passing of time the phrase “credit crunch” is becoming part of everyday speech, even if the words are an inadequate descriptor of what has really driven events of the last four or five months. The key driver surely remains the systemic and sustained failure to price risk correctly; it remains to be seen whether the lessons of that failure will contribute to anything resembling sustained prudence in financial markets in 2008 and beyond.

However the silver lining in all this should remain that, for those managing funding, risk and corporate financial strategy, operating in volatile and dynamic markets makes for a far more interesting professional life. The experience of good corporate credits in a buyer’s market for financial services is altogether less challenging. All of this of course brings us at the ACT back to a core part of what we do, which is to provide professional qualifications to equip our members to manage all aspects of treasury, risk and corporate finance – through good and bad markets.

So it is particularly timely that we are now launching our new qualification, the Certificate in International Treasury Management (CertITM). This is the latest addition to the group of papers that candidates for the AMCT Diploma in Treasury can take, and as a certificate CertITM is also available as a standalone qualification. The next edition of The Treasurer magazine will carry an article in which I describe the background to the new qualification. From my perspective the most exciting aspect of CertITM is its potential to meet a need that I have seen outside as well as within the UK. That need is for an understanding of the core elements of treasury and for the foundation this offers to those who want to tackle in greater depth the specialist areas within treasury, risk and corporate finance.

In parallel with the launch of the new qualification in the UK and its integration into AMCT we have been establishing agreements with treasury associations around the world, under which CertITM will be offered to their members locally. These arrangements and the investment we are making to develop them represent an important part of our commitment to encourage local associations to use our qualifications wherever these meet their market needs. CertITM is based entirely on online resources and other elements of e-learning support; by building the qualification in this way we have put substance behind our intent that it should indeed become a global standard in treasury education.

The next enrolment deadline for the MCT Advanced Diploma in Treasury, Risk and Corporate Finance is the end of January. This qualification continues to be the most senior one offered by the ACT and the flexibility now provided by the use of online resources and the choice of either face-to-face or online tutorial support makes MCT attractive internationally. Although the normal route to MCT is through success at the AMCT level candidates with appropriate work experience may be eligible to enter directly onto the MCT study programme.

Over the next four months we have a number of key events, culminating of course in the Annual Conference in Edinburgh at the end of April (remember that Early Bird pricing finishes at the end of this month). On 5 February we have the ACT Winter Paper at which Sir Nigel Rudd (Deputy Chairman of Barclays and Chairman of BAA) will be speaking. This event is free to attend and open to ACT members and student members, who can invite a non-member guest. Booking details are here.

We are running two very topical conferences in the next few weeks. On 30 January we have a half-day Corporate Funding event, with excellent speakers well qualified to reflect on a range of credit and funding issues in the current environment. Our two day annual Cash Management Conference starts on 12 February, with a strongly pan-European group of speakers. Please consider whether you or colleagues would be interested in attending these events.

We have now been in our Moorgate office for just over one year and both my colleagues and the members who come here for meetings appreciate the convenience and the facilities that we have. We try to use our meeting room space for any ACT activity that can be accommodated and continue to be willing to offer to members the use of these rooms, subject of course to the booking commitments that we hold. If you would like to take advantage of an ACT meeting room or just to visit our offices please get in touch with Melissa Brittain on 020 7847 2556.