CFA Institute begins to refund feesBS Reporter / Mumbai June 25, 2007The US-based Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute has begun refunding the examination fee of candidates who were unable to take the CFA exam held in India on June 3. The refund will be in full, including the registration fee, exam fee and curriculum fee that the institute collected from all the candidates. While the level I students paid a total fee of around Rs 31,000 ($760), the level II and III students shelled out around Rs 18,000 ($440). Moreover, the institute will also refund up to $300 towards travel expenses for the candidates who took the exam outside India. This refund, however, will be done at a later date, the institute said in a release.While the actual figures are not available, of the 7,000 students registered with the CFA institute in India, around 4,000 students are estimated to have taken up the examination. Besides, approximately 1,500 students who are said to have taken the exams at locations outside India -- Kathmandu, Dhaka, Colombo, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates -- would get their travel expenses refunded up to a limit of $300.In May this year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had issued a notice to the CFA institute asking it to stop its operations in India with immediate effect since it does not have permission from the regulating body to operate in India. The US-based CFA institute is a 60-year-old body with a presence in 134 countries. It has been operating in India since 1985. In 1997, it filed a case against Hyderabad-based Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI), which had launched its certification programme for financial analysts in 1985, over the use of CFA in its name.In March 2007, ICFAI filed a petition in the Guwahati High Court alleging that AICTE and the University Grants Commission were not taking any action against the CFA institute for allegedly running
