Global Association of Risk Professionals Announces Strategic Partnership with Spain's Instituto de Estudios Bursatiles

NEW YORK and MADRID, February 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Spain's Leading Financial Training Institute expands its Offerings in Financial Risk Management with GARP's Foundations in Banking Risk Program

The Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), the global leader in financial risk management professional certification and education, today announced a partnership with the Instituto de Estudios Bursatiles (IEB) in Madrid. The IEB, the financial school sponsored by the Bolsa de Madrid stock exchange, is making available to the financial and academic communities in Spain, Central, and South America, GARP's financial risk management training and education programs in Spanish.

As a first initiative, GARP and the IEB will offer GARP's Foundations of Banking Risk program (Fundamentos del Riesgo Bancario). This e-based program is designed to assist an organization in creating a culture of risk awareness throughout the company by familiarizing employees at all levels with the risks financial organizations deal with on a daily basis. The IEB will offer the Foundations program to its network of clients, as well as provide them with a supplemental Spanish language training option. Additional GARP programs are expected to be added over the next several years.

GARP's Foundations of Banking Risk program is designed around globally acknowledged risk management concepts. The program provides a fundamental level education in risk-related issues for all employees as a baseline training program.

GARP's expansion into world markets includes customizing programs so they speak to local regulations, while taking into account international regulatory standards and approaches. With this partnership, the Foundations of Banking Risk program is now available in four languages: Chinese, English, Spanish and Russian.

"Our IEB partnership brings to Spain, in local language, financial risk management concepts and approaches through one of Spain's finest sources of financial education," said Richard Apostolik, President and CEO of GARP. "This relationship supports GARP's mission to create a worldwide culture of financial risk awareness by partnering with exceptional institutes in key global markets to extend best practices to organizations at all levels."

"We are the leading training institution within the Spanish financial sector," said Sergio Reyes, director in company programs for IEB. "By adding GARP's Foundations in Banking Risk Program to our curriculum, we will enable many professionals to take their financial risk management knowledge to the next level."

IEB is a business school with over 500 professors, and programs ranging from entry level to masters. IEB enrolled over 10,000 people in 2010.

For more information on GARP, please visit http://www.GARP.org. For more information on IEB, please visit http://www.IEB.es.

About The Global Association of Risk Professionals

The Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) is a not-for-profit global membership organization dedicated to preparing professionals and organizations to make better informed risk decisions. Membership represents over 150,000 risk management practitioners and researchers from banks, investment management firms, government agencies, academic institutions, and corporations from more than 195 countries. GARP administers the Financial Risk Manager (FRM(R)) and the Energy Risk Professional (ERP(R)) exams; certifications recognized by risk professionals worldwide. GARP also helps advance the role of risk management via comprehensive professional education and training for professionals of all levels. http://www.garp.org.

About Instituto de Estudios Bursatiles

The IEB (Instituto de Estudios Bursatiles) is a non-profit Association founded in 1989 and composed of high-profile individuals from the Spanish public, political, and economic world. It is considered to be the leading finance & business school in Spain.

Furthermore, the IEB was a pioneer in teaching Financial Economics, providing one of the first in-depth practice-based financial curricula for students and practitioners in the late 1980s.

    
    Contacts:
    Keith Campbell               David Heinzinger
    G.S. Schwartz & Co.          G.S. Schwartz & Co
    +1-202-986-2152              +1-212-725-4500 ext. 329
    kcampbell@schwartz.com       dheinzinger@schwartz.com

SOURCE The Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP)