NUR-SULTAN – The Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) is opening competence centres at Kazakhstan’s major universities to improve investment literacy. The initiative also intends to help develop the key competencies and practical skills of new experts in finance, investment and other industries.
Photo credit: aifc.kz.
Eight platforms have already been established at Almaty universities including the SDU Fin Lab, ALMAU FinTech Lab, KBTU Knowledge Centre, Narxoz Training Centre, Centre of Case Law Institute Sorbonne-Kazakhstan, Al-Farabi KazNU Islamic Finance Centre, Maksut Narikbayev KazGUU Financial Risk Management Centre and Lev Gumilyev ENU Digital Finance Centre.
Users of the centres get access to the software of the Eikon terminal, the largest macroeconomic database, the analytical information and real-time data exchange operations of which are used by the professional financial and technical community around the world. The software significantly expands opportunities for the development of research activities and innovation in the educational process.
AIFC is going to expand the list of partner universities. By the end of the year, nine more competence centres will be launched in Nur-Sultan and Almaty. The goal is to bring local competencies up to international standards; the centres will foster training, professional development and knowledge exchange in hopes of drawing more young people to finance.
The centres also take into account the specialisation of each university. SDU Fin Lab’s competence centre has a financial laboratory for the development of practical skills and innovative ideas in global markets and investment. It will serve as a platform for financial market research.
At the University of ALMAU, the AIFC supports fintech initiatives to create financial start-ups and entrepreneurial initiatives and implement the business ideas of young developers.
The AIFC in conjunction with the Kazakh-British Technical University will hold trainings and guest lectures for students, undergraduates and doctoral students of economics and business. A new academic programme on risk management is also expected.
The Narxoz University created a platform to improve the skills of teaching staff of universities involved in the system of higher economic and financial education.
The competence centre at the Abai Institute of Sorbonne-Kazakhstan KazNPU is working on the training of future international lawyers and specialists in international, finance and European law, particularly in legal practice and research activities.
The centre of Islamic finance at Al-Farabi KazNU’s Higher School of Economics and Business is a joint project of the school, AIFC and Hamad Bin Khalifa University of Doha, Qatar. The activities of the centre are aimed at the development of postgraduate and bachelor programmes in Islamic finance and joint training of scientists.
A centre of financial risk management has been launched at the Higher School of Economics of M. Narikbayev University to develop educational programmes in financial risk management.
The digital centre of finance at Lev Gumilyov University plans to attract experts from AIFC for the development and implementation of educational and training programmes in digital finance, block chain and cryptocurrencies.
