Sparks fly over CFA trademark

Kalpana Pathak reports on the battle between ICFAI and a US institute.

The battle between Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) and the Chartered Financial Analayst (CFA) Institute of the US over the CFA trademark has intensified.


While the battle is being fought in the high court (the next hearing is in March), ICFAI says its future plans remain unaffected. The plans include setting up 15 private universities in nine states by 2010 at an estimated cost of Rs 1,000 crore.

ICFAI has acquired land in Nagpur (54 acres), Kanpur (60 acres) and Chandigarh (50 acres) to establish these university campuses. The Rajasthan government has also allocated 40 acres in Jaipur.

Jeffrey Diermeier, president and CEO of the CFA Institute, says he would step up the drive to caution investors over the use of the word CFA. The institute has objections to the use of the word ‘CFA’ by the ICFAI, which offers an educational programme specialising in finance called the CFA programme and awards a title called CFA.

"They can't claim CFA designation. We encourage the use of the curriculum but not the designation," says Diermeier.

On its part, ICFAI says the ICFAI university has been established through an act of state legislature (Tripura) and has been approved by University Grants Commission.

It is mandated by the legislature to offer the CFA programme and the CFA chartered designation to successful candidates who will also receive the Master of Financial Analysis (MFA) degree.

A point hotly contested by the ICFAI. The institute says it never approached CFA and has been using the designation ‘CFA’ for its degrees since inception, 20 years ago.

Says Subhash Sarnikar, Chairman ICFAI, "The then American president of CFA Institute, Alfred C Morley had suggested ICFAI to get the CFA designation registered in India and ICFAI had subsequently applied for the same in 1990. Also, CFA has not registered its brand in India."

ICFAI was initially known as the Institute of Certified Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI). Sarnikar however, maintains that the interest of the students will not be affected in any case.

Observers say CFA is keen to get its trademark designation back as it is planning organic growth in India.

The CFA programme has grown by 500 percent since 2003 in India with more than 6,600 total enrollments for one of the three CFA exams. It has more than 76000 CFA institute charterholders in 125 countries. with offices in Charlottesville, London, Hong Kong and New York.

The court had issued an interim injunction order on the use of the word CFA. ICFAI has already appealed against the order. The case will come up for hearing before the Bench of the Delhi High Court in March 2007.