The CFA Institute is a global, not-for-profit professional organization that provides investment professionals with finance education. The institute aims to promote standards in ethics, education, and professional excellence in the global investment services industry. Since 1945, the institute has published the

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

, quarterly journal, the '' Financial Analysts Journal''. It also publishes the ''CFA Digest'' and the ''CFA Magazine''.

Structure

The organization offers the

Chartered Financial Analyst The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program is a postgraduate professional certification offered internationally by the American-based CFA Institute (formerly the Association for Investment Management and Research, or AIMR) to investment and fi ...

(CFA) designation, the

Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement The Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement (CIPM) is a professional accreditation in the field of investment performance analysis. It includes investment performance measurement and attribution. It is offered by the CIPM Association, a ...

(CIPM), the Certificate in

ESG Investing Environmental, social, and governance (ESG), is a set of aspects, including environmental issues, social issues and corporate governance that can be considered in investing. Investing with ESG considerations is sometimes referred to as ''resp ...

, and until December 2021, the Investment Foundations Certificate. It provides continuing education conferences, seminars, webcasts, and publications to allow members and other participants to stay current on developments in the investment industry. CFA Institute also oversees the CFA Institute Research Challenge for university students and the Research Foundation of CFA Institute. CFA Institute is headquartered in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, with additional offices in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, Washington, D.C.,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

and Abu Dhabi. The current President and CEO is

Margaret Franklin Margaret Franklin, CFA, is CEO and President of the CFA Institute. Franklin is the first woman to hold this role. She assumed this role in September 2019 and leads the organization in promoting the highest standards of education, ethics, and profes ...

History

In 1947, four financial analyst societies—

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

— cooperated for the purpose of promoting the exchange of ideas and supporting the welfare of their profession, calling the new group the National Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (NFFAS). In 1959, the NFFAS Board of Directors approved the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts (ICFA), which was incorporated in 1962. NFFAS changed its name to the Financial Analysts Federation (FAF) in 1961. In 1962, the

(CFA) designation and

code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization. Companies' codes of conduct A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...

were established. In 1963, the profession was formalized when 284 candidates sat for the first CFA exam and 268 CFA charters were awarded. The following year, all 3 levels of the exam were administered to more than 1,700 candidates. The Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) was founded in 1990 as the umbrella organization for the ICFA and the FAF, still separate entities at that time. ICFA and the FAF consolidated under AIMR in 1999. In 2004, the Association for Investment Management and Research voted to change its name to the CFA Institute. In February 2019, The United States Department of Justice announced it will fine CFA Institute more than $320,000 for discriminating against qualified American workers by hiring temporary foreign workers through the H-1B visa program. Given the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, CFA Institute has cancelled the majority of the examinations around the world due to the lack of examination facilities in 2020. From 2021 onwards, all examinations were shifted to computer-based testing for the three levels of the CFA program. In March 2021, CFA Institute launched the Certificate in ESG Investing due to the increasing importance of

environmental, social and corporate governance ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) data reflect the negative externalities (costs to others) caused by an organization with respect to the environment, to society and to corporate governance. ESG data can be used by investo ...

(ESG) factors in

socially responsible investing Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about so ...

References

External links

*
About the CFA Institute and Charter
{{Authority control Analyst societies Business and finance professional associations Companies based in Virginia Organizations established in 1947