A new partnership between the Canadian Securities Institute and the Professional Risk Managers International Association (PRMIA) paves the way for CSI’s risk management training to be a first step toward PRMIA’s Professional Risk Manager (PRM) certificate.

The partnership will allow CSI’s Financial Markets Risk Management Course to satisfy Exam 1 of the PRM designation. The PRM program has four exam modules. Risk managers in over one hundred countries worldwide endorse the certificate.

“Recently, global risk management of the financial sector was named a critical challenge now facing world markets by the Governor of the Bank of Canada,” said Roberta Wilton, CSI’s president and CEO, in a news release. “With this initiative, we are both promoting financial risk management in Canada and helping our students acquire internationally recognized accreditation.”

The Financial Markets Risk Management Course gives students a credit toward the PRM designation and to CSI’s Derivatives Market Specialist (DMS) designation, the only derivatives designation of its kind in the world.

The CSI says the course will be enhanced to more closely align with PRMIA’s Exam 1 by the spring of 2004. Students who have completed CSI’s course or attained the DMS designation by then will be grandfathered from writing Exam 1 of the PRM.

“We salute CSI for giving risk management a Canadian perspective,” said David Koenig, Chair of PRMIA’s Board of Directors. “This partnership will expand this important discipline in existing and new sectors through two quality programs.”

Founded in 2002, the PRMIA has over 9,000 members from 110 countries. It is a non-profit association dedicated to standards, education and leadership of the risk management profession.