An article was published on this site recently which attested to the ‘hotness of CIMA students in the current market’. It also questioned CIMA’s fit with the financial services industry. The article generated a large number of comments in protest. CIMA welcomes this opportunity to set the record straight and give the reasons why many leading employers in investment banking consider CIMA ideal for working in finance.

As many of the comments to the previous article confirm, CIMA professionals without a doubt add value in investment banking and retail banking. Additionally, many banks mandate CIMA over the other accountancy qualifications on their finance graduate schemes.

This is borne out by comments from the article, including this one from ‘former BarCap product controller’: “Barclays Capital sponsor their product control graduate intake to do the CIMA qualification yet also hire ACAs and support other qualifications such as CFA and ACCA. Their aim is to be the premier global investment bank, they value diversity.”

CIMA professionals work in many diverse roles within banking, ranging from product control and analytical and decision making roles to risk and project management, highlighting the flexibility of the qualification in opening up doors to CIMA students and members in banking.

One CIMA member we spoke to came into investment banking from manufacturing and found the transition from industry to banking easy. The principles are the same – it’s just the products and terminology that are the main differences. She now works in product control for one of the leading investment banks globally.

She tells us, ‘We sponsor CIMA at our bank. One trader once told me that we should recruit accountants, not people who want to be traders as he can get grads for trading. He wanted people in product control who can control a balance sheet and know the balance sheet and can give him confidence that his P&L is clean.’

Another comment worth noting on the original article said, ‘As an ACMA myself, I have spent the last few years managing Front Office risk for one of the leading Global Investment Banks – I therefore highly disagree with your viewpoint that doing CIMA will not allow you to work in Front Office, let alone in other key areas of Finance.’

So thanks to everyone who commented on the previous article and helped to set the record straight on how the CIMA qualification is perfect for careers in the financial services sector!

Click here for a few more stories of CIMA’s working in banking and finance.