Structured Finance Certification: FIIN’s Key Contribution to Market Resilience

Abstract

FIIN (the Fixed Income Investor Network) has developed a practitioner-oriented structured finance testing and certification program in-house to address the current vacuum of educational opportunity to learn best practices. It is an obstacle not only for structured finance practitioners to seek continuous professional development, but also to the further development of depth, liquidity, and coverage in the structured finance market itself. Since its formation in 2018, FIIN has viewed education as mission critical. The support for education is there in FIIN’s motto: “Better investors make better markets.” Having grown rapidly in the past five years—to 550 individual members from more than 250 firms—and drawing on the talents of veteran buy-side and structured finance-specific training talent, FIIN is uniquely positioned to offer professional certification. And given that the buy-side always pays when structured securities are not rated or priced for fully-loaded risk, FIIN is the obvious entity to take the lead in setting educational standards for the market. The target date for the beta launch is October 2023.