News

BIBF Invests in Cambridge English Skills for Bahrain's Finance Professionals

13 September 2010

Manama, Bahrain - The Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) is the first institute in the region to adopt the popular Cambridge Financial English (CFE) blended learning course to help develop the language skills in the finance sector. The move is part of a growing trend which is seeing English ability becoming an essential skill in the finance sector.

Zara Shahid Khan, Marketing Manager, Cambridge ESOL explains:

“English is fast becoming the language of the financial sector and it's really important for large organisations such as BIBF to have confidence in their employers’ language ability. The course is ideal for busy financial professionals and this will be a real benefit to the sector in Bahrain.”

Kadri Rizk Head of Center for Leadership and Management commented:

“This will further strengthen our ability to improve the human capital skill sets of our participants. The Kingdom of Bahrain is an important regional financial hub and English is acknowledged to be the language of communication in this sector. It is therefore essential that those who wish to work, or who are already working in banking and finance, can demonstrate that they have the necessary language skills to be able to function efficiently and effectively.”

Developed by Cambridge ESOL, Cambridge University Press and ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) – Cambridge Financial English offers a combination of online and face-to-face tuition covering reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

CFE was initially launched in March 2009 and from September, students at BIBF will be able to improve their 'real life' Financial English skills with modules on basic accounting, teamwork and managing people, tax, banking and insurance, risk assessment, mergers, acquisitions and ethics and corporate governance.