FRM vs. PRM?

Since we launched our online courses for PRM and FRM last month, I have been receiving lots of questions about which is the more relevant qualification and which to pursue. In general, both are helpful and both will help you grow in your risk management career.

From my experience in China and Hong Kong, the FRM certification is better known because GARP is a larger organization than PRMIA and has been established in Asia for a longer time. You find lots of professionals with the FRM certification in banks, insurance companies and with the regulators. FRM has a scheduled exam (ever November) which is good because it gives you a date to aim for while you are studying. The FRM Examination is a 5-hour, approximately 140 question multiple-choice examination. The examination is split into two sections of 2.5 hours. The exam is given in booklet form.

PRMIA is making a big push in China at the moment and just set up their office in Beijing. Furthermore, they recently appointed a Chinese partner to run the PRM exams and will translate the exams into Chinese. So they are obviously looking to grow in this market and get access to a whole new generation of risk professionals. The PRM exam can be taken any business day of the year at centers around the world. This is good because it’s convenient but it also means that you can procrastinate if you aren’t disciplined. The complete PRM exam consists of 120 multiple choice questions. Exam questions are randomly drawn, according to the syllabus order and weightings, from the exam database.

PRMIA also offers the Associate PRM (APRM) which is a useful certification if you day-job isn’t in risk management. According to PRMIA, the Associate PRM is designed for staff entering the risk management profession, for those with two or three years risk management experience but need to demonstrate the breadth of their skills, and those who interface with risk management such as auditors, compliance officers, accounting, legal, and risk IT departments. The Associate PRM Exam is computer-based with 90 multiple choice questions.

Lecture Friday at Beida University CCISSR

I am going to be giving a talk this Friday to faculty and students at Beida University’s China Center for Insurance and Social Security Research (CCISSR) titled “Analyzing the Operational Impact of China’s Basic Standard for Enterprise Internal Control.” The audience will mostly be made up of risk management researchers and academics, so I am purposely focusing on the operational elements of corporate governance and internal control improvements.

The main emphasis of the talk is to show that companies can have real business benefits from properly implementing internal control structures and other forms of corporate governance. Examples from the US (from Sarbanes-Oxley experience) show that companies who do this well gain competitive advantages in the marketplace through improved efficiency and that they value of their stock goes up because they are perceived to have better management. These are great lessons to learn for the Chinese companies that are going to be implementing C-SOX later this year and in 2010.

Furthermore, I will outline the key operational challenges related to implementation and show the areas of highest impact for getting started.

p.s. - here's a press release from Beida about the event: http://econ.pku.edu.cn/index_mod2.php?mesid=4378