PRMIA
PRMIA, the Professional Risk Managers' International Association, is a non-profit association for people who work in financial risk management, from recent graduates to chief risk officers. A volunteer group of risk professionals founded PRMIA in 2002, and its members elect the board of directors that governs the association.
PRMIA awards the Professional Risk Manager (PRM) designation and certificates in operational risk and other fields, and it offers more than 700 online courses for risk professionals. Local chapters in nearly every major financial center hold about 200 meetings a year, and in Europe they meet in cities such as London, Paris, Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Vienna.
The PRM designation and its exams
The Professional Risk Manager designation has two exams, which candidates take at Pearson VUE test centers within two years, and recent updates of the curriculum added operational resilience, machine learning and fintech. Candidates need a graduate degree, a bachelor degree with two years of work or four years of work in financial services or in a risk department. Holders of the CFA, CIIA or FRM are exempt from the first exam and only take the second one.
A single PRM exam costs 800 US dollars for non-members and 650 US dollars for sustaining members, and the bundle of both exams costs 1,500 or 1,200 US dollars. The designation is awarded for life, but holders need an active sustaining membership to use the letters PRM after their name.
Operational risk and other certificates
The Operational Risk Management (ORM) Certificate covers frameworks and measurement methods for operational risk in financial institutions, including operational resilience, risk governance and compliance risk. The program fee is 599 US dollars for non-members and 549 US dollars for sustaining members, and the exam authorization for Pearson VUE is valid for twelve months.
The Associate PRM Certificate is meant for staff entering risk management and for auditors, accountants, lawyers and systems developers who need its basic methods. Further certificate programs cover cyber risk management and climate and environmental risk, and PRMIA also awards an Enterprise Risk Management designation.
Chapters in Europe and Germany
In Europe, PRMIA has city chapters in Vienna, Brussels, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich, and national chapters in Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland. Regional directors appointed by the board lead the chapters, and steering committees of volunteers support them.
The Frankfurt chapter is led by the regional directors Ulrich Noegel, a freelance risk consultant, and Daniel Andres of Nomentia, with Christoph Ruth of Capco and Claus von Campenhausen of Macromedia University of Applied Sciences on the steering committee. In Munich, risk managers from Munich Re, Allianz Investment Management, Commerzbank and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank sit on the steering committee together with Rudi Zagst of the Technical University of Munich. The London chapter is led by Navin Rauniar, and its steering committee includes members from NatWest Group, Emirates NBD and University College London.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
Membership levels and fees
Contributing membership costs 100 US dollars a year and suits students, risk professionals in developing countries and people who work with risk managers. Sustaining membership costs 250 US dollars a year, 600 US dollars for three years or 880 US dollars for five years and adds webinar recordings, the online communities, the risk library and the eCoach courses for the PRM exams. Companies can buy corporate sustaining membership for whole risk teams, with dues set by the number of employees.
Board and chief executive
Justin C. McCarthy is chief executive officer of PRMIA and sits on the board of directors as an ex officio member. The elected directors represent the regions and the global membership, and Rustum Bharucha and Carl N. Densem of Rabobank represent the EMEA region. The head office of PRMIA is at 1700 Cannon Road in Northfield, Minnesota, in the United States.
Risk Management Challenge and Intelligent Risk
The PRMIA Risk Management Challenge is a case competition of the PRMIA Institute for undergraduate and graduate students, who work in teams of two to four on a real-world risk case. The top 16 teams meet in a virtual trigger weekend, the top 8 present at the international finals, and the winners receive cash awards and scholarships for the PRM designation.
Intelligent Risk is the quarterly publication of PRMIA, with articles that risk practitioners write on their own field. The PRMIA Institute is a non-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code and publishes peer-reviewed research for the risk profession.
PRMIA and Finance Loop
Risk managers in Frankfurt and Munich measure the new exposures that Finance Loop members discuss, such as the market risk of crypto assets held by banks or the model risk of machine learning in credit scoring. Finance Loop takes up these questions at its events, where Risk & Compliance is one of the four content tracks.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.