Dalal Street may gain on Stern School expertise

National Institute of Securities Markets in talks to start course in collaboration with the top US institute

MUMBAI: Stern School aspirants have something to cheer. The National Institute of Securities Markets plans to launch a two-year programme focussing primarily on securities markets in collaboration with the top US B-school.

“We are in discussions with the Stern School of New York University to jointly launch a two-year residential programme dedicated to securities markets,” Dr G Sethu, director of NISM, told DNA Money on the sidelines of an international conference on ‘developing India’s municipal bond market’.

“At present, the securities markets attract professionals like CAs, CFAs and those who have studied MBA Finance. All these courses do not have a securities market focus. People come to the markets and learn on the job. The idea is to have a pure-play securities markets course, which is the need of the hour,” he added.

New York University’s Leonard N Stern School of Business is one of America’s premier management education schools and research centres. One of the USP of the Stern school is its location in the vicinity of Wall Street. The Greenwich Village campus in the heart of New York City, NYU Stern, is as close as a student of capital markets can get to the “real action”.

Dr Sethu, however, said that they are not looking at sending students to the Greenwich campus. “But, the faculty may come here,” he said.

The course, which is scheduled to begin in August -September 2009, will have an initial intake of around 200 students.

The course will be a first of its kind in India and will be developed on an incubation model, wherein NISM will develop the curriculum and run the course initially and then at a later stage will take it to universities across the country. “We see a requirement of 30,000-40,000 every year in the industry. One institute cannot adequately cater to such huge requirements. So, we are planning an incubation model to collaborate with universities across the country,” Dr Sethu said.

The officer on special duty said the course will begin in the new facility that is coming up at a 75-acre campus in Navi Mumbai. “We are looking at an IIM kind of facility. But unlike the IIMs, we will share the course with other Universities,” he added.

NISM, being a Sebi-promoted institute, would cater to the manpower needs of Sebi itself. The regulator has pegged its requirement at over 100 officers in various departments annually. This year, the Sebi has recruited over 70 professionals in campus recruitment  across the country.

The NISM is also planning short-term courses to train state government and local body officials in various aspects of a municipal bonds market.

n_subramanian@dnaindia.net