Risk Latte's Certificate in Financial Engineering (CFE)

[Joy Pathak]

Came across it on another forum...


Risk Latte - CERTIFICATE IN FINANCIAL ENGINEERING (CFE)


For Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo only I think...

A CQF competitor?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

There are available for NYC and London.
In fact, RiskLatte approached us last year about the idea of Quant Network being the sole agent of the course in NYC.

It's a low cost approach to a series of weekend workshops. Most of participants are funded by firms for the cost as far I know.

 

[Joy Pathak]

There are available for NYC and London.
In fact, RiskLatte approached us last year about the idea of Quant Network being the sole agent of the course in NYC.

It's a low cost approach to a series of weekend workshops. Most of participants are funded by firms for the cost as far I know.

Any particular reason for not accepting? I think many working professionals would like it?

 

[dstefan]

I very much like Risk Latte's website. Very informative. No idea who are the people behind it, but they are doing a very good job.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I just received this email from Risk Latte to clarify their course.

CFE which is delivered in New York now costs US$5,000 (USD Five Thousand only) per person. In the current batch in New York (the one that is currently going on) we have participants from Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, RBS, KPMG, etc.

Also, CFE is not a series of weekend workshops. The classes are held on the weekends but it is a full fledged course.

 

[Joy Pathak]

I just received this email from Risk Latte to clarify their course.

They are watching....

$5000 isn't bad for the whole program I think ?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Any particular reason for not accepting? I think many working professionals would like it?

If they are covering what they say they are covering, it is impressive.

---------- Post added at 01:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:05 PM ----------

I very much like Risk Latte's website. Very informative. No idea who are the people behind it, but they are doing a very good job.

It's a well-designed site with meticulous attention to detail. Impressive.

 

[Stefan Zota]

It's a well-designed site with meticulous attention to detail. Impressive.

Interesting quiz section: "Are you smart than a GS trader?"
Good trading interview questions ...

 

[mugoyal]

Avoid at all costs - Really Disappointing

I am a student who recently joined the course.

I strongly recommend avoiding it for the following reasons:

1. The course content is not well documented.

2. The course is run in a very random manner and the instructor although knowledgeable is not competent enough to organize his agenda.

3. The course is advertised and promoted as being very flexible, but this is from my personal experience, classes havent been held for almost 2-3 months and this has really affected me as a professional as I have other commitments. The management is completely indifferent.
(Key Please Expect loads of unreasonable delays

4. I did reasearch the CFQ by Paul Willmott - although much more expensive, you can be more assured about the quality and the deliverable.

Most of all, the instructor (Mr. Bhattacharya) does not provide ample clarrification when solving problems, he runs ahead with his excel sheet, giving no time for one to understand. So you might think you have learnt a alot, but its ultra bull-shit

Also, people can simply score points by answering the facebook questions, which any1 can search on google and post it in. This certificate does not carry any substance.. Thats why its so damn cheap.

He is more concerned about talking non-sensicle topics that focusing on the content. Most of lunch.

I strongly advice against enrolling for this course. Its a waste of money and rest assured there will be delays.

Duped-Student

 

[DominiConnor]

I have no direct knowledge of the CFE beyond reading the link Joy shared with us, and of course as a part of the CQF faculty, I declare an interest.

It doesnn't explain how you can do the optional C++, which is not something you could do without help, and there is no mention of tutorial assistance. Nor does it say who teaches, the CQF is big on that, enough that when at a recent information session someone asked (politely) who I was and why I thought I could teach C++, there was a distinct change in the background noise.

Generally it does seem to cover a good subset of the CQF, but the order of topics doesn't feel right, for example Ito's lemma before convex functions ? or valuation of 2nd generation exotics before first order Greeks ?

But one can spend any amount of time arguing about the syllabus, certainly the CQF includes the result of some quite intense discussions...

I fret about the organisation issues that mugoyal cites, I've done various bits of my own education on a part time basis, and know how hard it can be to juggle with job, life et al even when the course is stable.

Organisation is a big thing in good course delivery, one that is easily overlooked. I have taught at various places, and sometimes that goes bad. For one firm I turned up at one place to do what was billed as a basic intro on a topic that was on the edge of my own skills. Every single guy in the room knew it better than me, and they had sent me to the wrong place as well. To cover themselves, they blamed me...

I teach a bit of Paul Wilmott's CQF, and it's very different.
It's hosted by 7City who are a pretty large training outfit, and they have a gang of people whose sole job is to make sure lecturers know where and what they are supposed to teach, there is surprisingly deep technical support, people who make sure the right notes are printed in the right number, etc. There's content management, and if I don't respond to the automatically generated nagging emails to make sure I turn up, more get sent. That sounds small, but most courses I know have had missed this, and students tell me how pissed they are, when you consider what each lecture costs. And of course all CQF lectures are recorded, which in my mind is essential for a part time course.
Also, if your life/work means you have to stop and restart, then you can join the next cohort with zero hassle.

I have no idea how much all that costs, but it will account for some of the difference in price between the CFE and the CQF.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

In the spirit of transparency, I hope that the owner/principal trainer of CFE, Rahul Bhattacharya would sign up here and response to this publicly.
I'm pretty sure that mentions of CFE on Quantnet are watched closely.

And for the people who took the course, you can send us a review of the course so we can have it on record. You can do so securely and anonymously at Submit A Review for Your Program | Quant Network

And here is the link to their facebook page where students can earn points for the certificate by answering QUIZ OF THE DAY
CFE on Facebook

I also saw a deleted post here by some who doesn't want to use his name. I'm going to post it here because every opinion counts.

Please do not take this course at all. Although the course offering looks nice in their website, it is a complete ripoff. I happened to be a victim of this program as another friend of mine. The structure of the program was completely unprofessional. After sending this principle rahul the money for the course, he completely ignored me. He constantly kept saying there was a huge demand for his course and told me to pay immediately or otherwise i would be forever rejected from his program (since i told him i was interested). Being desperate to get an edge in the admissions process, I sent him money not knowing who he was or anything. After sending him money, he didn't even have the professionalism to email me back the confirmation or anything.

Be aware that there are two batches being offered for 6 months each. one for the january through june and the other from june through december. He is supposed to deliver the courses on the last weekend of the month for 6 months (12-13 hours or so on saturdays and sunday for a total of 80 hours over 6 months). When I joined, he was still servicing people from the January batch because he didn't finish the courses. After asking those people, i came to knowledge that some people only had 1 or two courses delivered to them as his excuse was he had problems in his household. Hence when i joined, he was already in the 2nd or 3rd class because he was accommodating them. It was not even fair to me. He told me to catch up.

Also, to make matters worse, he didn't come on july, august or september. Thats a breach of contract. Two days before he was supposed to come, i emailed him to ask him where the venue of the classes was going to be, he emails me back saying he cancelled it because other members couldn't come on those days. I got so angry. Then he finishes the sentence saying he can put me on the next years batch if i wish. I thought it was a complete scam. He didn't even apologize to me and when i asked him for the money, he hangs up the phone with a blatant "no". His phone then gets switched off completely. I didn't even know where to go or whom to complain to. Please, I repeat please, do not take courses like his unless it is Paul Wilmott or some other reputable program like Baruchs. I learned so much more by taking a refresher seminar at Baruch than I did taking this. Oh did i mention, he said there was a huge demand for his program. When I joined, there were only 5 people in the class. In my vocabulary, that does not constitute a huge demand. I have managed to download a lot of pricing modules from the class all excel and vba based. (I have come to accept that in reality, i paid 2500 to get these modules rather than learn what they are or how to use them). so if you are interested, I can give them to you for free. I am sorry if I sounded rude, I lost 2500 dollars. It is pretty sensitive matter to me.

 

[Joy Pathak]

I know someone who I think was in the CFE program.
I will see if I can get him to write a review. It should be valuable.

 

[DominiConnor]

It all sounds rather sad.

In my mind, alarm bells would have rung when he said " pay immediately or otherwise i would be forever rejected from his program". Classes do of course fill up, but anything that says 'buy now or never' is on the wrong side of my trust.

 

[sycurve]

Dear Readers,

I guess I owe it to my company and all those students and graduates (around 180 of them globally) who have taken our course and graduated from it to provide an explanation to what has been posted on this forum regarding CFE.

MUGOYAL signed up for the CFE (2011) - Jan batch in Mumbai and we gave him the option - an extraordinary one - to attend the classes in the current batch as well, i.e. CFE (2010) - July batch. This was a gesture of kindness since he was travelling all the way from Middle to attend the course in Mumbai. CFE has a flexible time table and is delivered over 12 days in a span of around 6 months. Since it is an instructor led course in all the locations (New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Mumbai) and the instructor has to fly to all these locations to take the classes and since all the students (almost 95%, at least) are bankers and investment bankers from top tier global banks and investment banks, the schedule and the time table is kept in such a way that we accomodate every one's travel and work schedule. Mukul himself requested us to postpone 4 classes over the last two months and on both occasions we accomodated his requests and even though all other bankers were greatly inconvenienced, everybody eventually acquiesced.

However, in the two classes that Mukul finally managed to attend in Mumbai, he was hopelessly lost. We were talking about Fourier Transforms and pricing of options, SABR and calibration of SABR on Excel spreadsheet to value rates options, etc. Mukul was clueless. His math skills were non existent and his Excel was at best perfunctory. Still I assured him that over a span of one year - since he was going to do the course over two batches, i.e. 24 sessions - he would eventually get his head around these concepts.

Mukul has been writing on his CV that he is already a CFE graduate. He has been writing on his CV on the website LinkedIn that he has taken the CFE course from us.

Then last week he finally asked for a refund and came up with a laundry list of complaints. This was a way to wiggle out of the enrollment because finally he may have realized that this is not his cup of tea. And he threatened us that if we did not refund the fees he would bad mouth us in all the forums.

Well good luck Mukul. You can bad mouth all you want, but the truth shall still prevail. There are 180 top bankers and investment bankers (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, RBS, UBS, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas, etc.) who have enrolled and graduated from our CFE course since the begining of 2009. We will continue to move forward. And nobody gets any certification because of the QUIZ OF THE DAY posted on Facebook. Yes, people do get points and enough number of points gets the person a prize / FREE gift (a book). This has nothing to do with CFE certification and is a totally independent effort.

In the next post, I shall explain what the issue with the other guy is (the deleted post that Andy is talking about).

Regards,
Rahul
+852 6395 8032
+852 3752 0619

 

[sycurve]

Dear Readers,

Sycurve is my user name and I am Rahul Bhattacharya who is the course Director of CFE. I am also a Director of Risk Latte Company which runs the CFE course.

Now let me come to the deleted post that Andy finally managed to post. That post is by a guy called RajanS who has apparently done "something" from Drexel University. His family is based in the Philippines. Around 6 months back, he had repeatedly pestered me with requests to join CFE and attend clasess in New York; it was explained to him well in advance as to how the course progressed. CFE is an instructor led (class room) course whereby in each of the six global locations it is taught by an instructor. The time table and the course schedule is extremely flexible and is deliberately kept that way to accomodate the busy and varying schedules of bankers and investment bankers.

And Rajan was given a 50% discount. That is, he only paid US$2,500 for a course that cost US$5,000 (I saw many say that this course is so cheap and hence the quality must be bad!) This is because he said (a) he was a full time student and (b) he came from a totally unrelated discipline. We gladly agreed as that was our policy for the July batch that was commencing in New York. US$2,500 for a Financial Engineering course (spanning over 12 full days) may seem ridiculous but then we are the biggest IDIOTS on earth, guys. We charge US$5,000 from bankers and investment bankers and they are happy about it and we are happy about it. If someone thinks that it is trash because of the low fees then so be it. I am happy to see top bankers and investment bankers come to our course, and we have a great time in the class.

Anyway, coming back to the point: Rajan was absolutely certain that he wanted to sign up. His father called up repeatedly from the Philippines and urged me to take on his son. He was concerned about his son and his future and said that this would be a stepping stone for him to go to Baruch or whatever.

The New York classes have been rescheduled a couple of times over the past 2 months. But so what? Nobody complained. In fact, every student wanted it that way. There are three students in our CFE class in New York who work for Goldman Sachs, one student from RBS, one from BNP Paribas, etc. - these guys are damn happy about the content and the quality of the course and they, in fact, love the fact that the schedule is flexible and is set in a consesual manner. This way everybody's schedule is accomodated and nobody gets to miss any classes.

Legal and personal information removed

It is indeed sad what happened that day and even more sad that this is a guy whose father had pleaded to me to make sure that his son does not get derailed and veer off onto a wrong track in life.

Personal comments on Rajan removed

(Legal threat removed) Good luck, Rajan!

 

[DominiConnor]

I've just checked his profile and it doesn't say he has done the CFE, but it does say he's done the CFA...

When making such assertions Rahul, be aware that I have a large social network.

That being said, I think it would be tough for someone with an Accounting & finance degree to take on SABR and Fourier with no preparation, even if that degree was from the LSE. Simply the wrong kind of maths. One side or other should have worried about that.

 

[sycurve]

Dominic, as indeed you must have. I do not doubt for a second that you must be having a large social network. We all do. I cannot cut and paste a screen shot which was taken this morning from the LinkedIn site but if you give me your email address I would be happy to send you that screen shot so that you can see it for yourself.

I think CQF course is a great course and I think Paul Wilmott is a great applied mathematician. Who can stand next to him?

We at Risk Latte, do whatever little we can do to promote financial engineering education. And by the grace of God we have survived so far. So far, around 180 students, out of which aroun 95% of whom are bankers and investment bankers from top tier global banks, have enrolled and graduated form our course. And by this December we would be finishing our first batch in London and by this coming January we would be finishing our first batch in New York. In London we have 35 people enrolled and in New York (contrary to what anyone may have said here) we have 15 people enrolled.

Sometimes, I wonder, why these top bankers from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, RBS, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse - these top traders and quants - come and do our course? Perhaps, because we are so cheap and perhaps because our quality is indeed quite good (even if a guy gets million quids in bonus, he won't wast five thousand pounds on a rubbish course, will he?)

And Dominic, what is even strange is that quite a few in our London class have already done CQF and yet they have come to do our CFE. And they are so damn happy about our course. Our unique selling proposition (a) the time table is so very flexible and accomodates every one's schedule (b) the classes are instructor led (c) the classes are held on weekends in all the locations (d) the course content is delivered 100% using Excel spreadsheet.

We have a great time in the class. We do everything using Excel spreadsheet and cover most of the contemporary quantitative models that the banks. I feel great about the CFE course and all my other instructors, there are four of them in Asia feel likewise.

Cheers!
Rahul

 

[DominiConnor]

I read sycurve's last post as a threat against Rajan, maybe a justified threat, but it's clear that something bad is going on here.

 

[sycurve]

Dominic,

I admire your choice of words and your way of putting things through the prism in this forum for the benefit of others.

Nothing bad is going on here. What is going on is that a small but a very well established company in Hong Kong is trying to break into the Western market and actually succeeding in it. Rajan and all antecedants surrounding him are truly peripheral in the overall scheme of things. As our lawyers told us so succintly the other day that there would be so many who would want to throw rocks at us; some would do that quite nicely and in a subtle manner and some would be quite blatant about it. What matters is how we defend ourselves and carry on in the face of harrowing challenges.

We will get there, Dominic. No, nothing bad is going on here. We may be tiny, but we are trying to do business in an honest manner and push the Asian frontier in the West like every other Asian business house, big or small, is doing. It's going to be the Asian century, mate.

Cheers!
Rahul

 

[sycurve]

Let me give you another piece of information Dominic. One of the guys who has done your CQF course (via only recorded video) in Hong Kong and works for a top tier bank here has graduated from our CFE course. He liked it so much that he has become an investor in Risk Latte Company and he is also one of the instructors of CFE in Asia. He is actively promoting CFE in Asia.

It doesn't matter whether Ito's lemma comes after convex function or before. It doesn't matter one bit. As I said, we'll get there, mate.