Best Short-term Finance Certification courses for an MBA student

There is absolutely, no denying the fact that – having a Powerful Certification on your CV gives you an unmatched advantage over your peers (your competitors!). Short term finance certification courses help in getting your CV shortlisted, gaining an impressive CV pointer to guide your interview, top-up with practical job oriented skills and be JOB READY.
We are pretty sure; you are in complete agreement with this. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this article.
The Questions are:
Which certification course to take up? What are the options available?
Which certification gives me the best ROI? How much do I have to shell out?
Which certification will give me the practical knowledge? How much time do I have at hand?
Here’s the list of online finance courses , you can add value to your CV with:
1. Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA):
This is not a short term course, actually. It’s more of a parallel MBA. Administered by the US based CFA Institute, Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is the benchmark for Finance Professionals, across the globe. Spread across 3 levels, it is ideal for MBA/other students aspiring for a Financial Markets based career in Wealth Management, Investment Banking, Portfolio Management and Research Analysis.
While clearing all the 3 levels requires four years of professional work experience, an MBA student can consider clearing CFA – Level I, which does not have any restriction on minimum work ex.
Recommended learning hours: About 300 hours of self-learning, per level.
Examination frequency: Twice a year – June and December ( 8 Testing centers across India)
2. Certified Financial Planner (CFP):
If Financial Planning (Retirement Planning, Insurance Planning, Investment Planning, and Tax & Estate Planning) is where you wish to spend your professional life in – this prestigious International Certification awarded in India by Financial Planning Standards Board of India (FPSB) is the ideal choice.
There are two pathways – Regular Status & Challenge Status; to achieve a CFP certification. If you are pursuing your MBA currently, you will be eligible for the Regular Status Pathway.
The Regular pathway has a set of 5 examinations ranging from Risk Analysis and Insurance planning to Advanced Financial Planning.
Recommended learning hours: 250 hours
Examination frequency: Thrice a Year at 155 NCFM testing centers
3. FLIP Certifications:
A high quality ‘Made in India’ option, it has 55,000+ alumni – students and working professionals, since 2010, including 4,500+ IIM Alumni. FLIP offers India’s only Recruiter endorsed, job oriented training & certifications in BFS. Leading banks & FIs’ endorsement “We prefer/give weightage to FLIP certified candidates”, along with their logos, appears on every FLIP certificate.
With courses written practicing Industry professionals, FLIP’s training offers excusive practical expertise you won’t get elsewhere.
At the basic level, FLIP’s Finance & Banking Fundamentals course gives a foundation on critical finance concepts; how financial markets work and an overview of the banking business.. It’s very popular and is the choice of thousands of B School aspirants and first years.
As per your inclination in specialization, FLIP also offers training & certifications in 26 advanced, aspirational areas like Investment Banking, Risk Management, Capital Markets, Wealth Management, Corporate Banking and Banking Operations.
Speaking of FLIP certified candidates, Mr. Somak Ghosh, Managing Partner – Contrarian Capital (earlier Group President @ YES Bank & Co-CEO at Motilal Oswal PE) said
Recommended learning hours: 30-50 hours, at your own pace
Examination frequency: Available through the year, at 36 centers across India
4. Financial Risk Manager (FRM):
Offered by the Global Association for Risk Professionals (GARP), the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) is a globally recognized certification in Risk Management. The certification will help you in roles like Risk Assessment, Financial Risk Consultant, Risk Management, Asset Liability Management etc.,
Of course, given the cost and effort, it is a worthwhile investment only if you’re sure of your interest in Risk Management.
The examination is conducted in two parts – Part I & Part II. While there is no pre-requisite educational qualification, in order to obtain the final certification, you are expected to produce at least 2 years of relevant full-time work experience.
Recommended learning hours: 250 hours/Level
Examination frequency: Twice a year (June & November), 9 testing centers across India
5. NCFM Certifications:
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) in 1996 launched the NSE’s Certification in Financial Markets (NCFM) as an online testing and certification initiative.
The short term finance certification courses are oriented towards roles like Stock Analysts, Portfolio Managers etc. – they have a wide range.
With an exhaustive list of offerings spread across three levels (Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced) these Short-term Finance certifications can be a good value add. However, note that, there is no training as such. You download a pdf and then give the certification. They do however, offer effective training for the FLIP-NCFM modules like Equity Research, Issue Management and Market Risk, and check out FLIP’s online finance training .