NIIT, ICICI Bank to train finance professionals

NIIT has announced its entry into training for the financial services sector with the launch of the Institute of Finance, Banking and Insurance (IFBI) in partnership with ICICI Bank. IFBI plans to cater to the needs of the domestic and overseas markets BFSI market.

IFBI will commence admissions this October and its first offering - a six-month full-time programme, the Post-Graduate Diploma in Banking Operations (PGDBO), will focus on grooming entry-level professionals for the banking industry. ICICI Bank has offered to recruit all students of the first batch as Officers upon successful completion of the programme.

NIIT Chairman, Rajendra S Pawar, said, "The launch of IFBI utilises our reach and expertise in distributed non-formal education and harnesses the domain expertise of ICICI Bank, to move into growing areas of the knowledge economy."

The Banking industry currently employs nine lakh people and is expected to grow this number to 15 lakh over the next five years. This translates into an additional requirement of six lakh professionals with skill sets in this segment. To start with, IFBI will offer training programmes for the entry-level professionals in the banking sector.

The training programmes will be offered from IFBI education centres set up in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata. ICICI Bank has supported IFBI in designing the curriculum , developing the course content and offering laboratory and internship sites to students. ICICI Bank will also consider granting education loans to students selected for the PGDBO programme.

The launch of IFBI follows close on the heels of the launch of NIIT Imperia, Centre for Advanced Learning, through which the company will offer executive management education programmes in alliance with the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Indore.