Hello,One of the junior member of my team is wanting to pass a certificate in risk management next year. He is an IT engineer with a good financial and numerical background who has been working in the quant and risk team for two years.I have seen that there are now two certificates in risk management: PRMIA from PRM and FRM.I know the FRM program quite well but I have no clue of idea about the differences between the PRMIA and the FRM both in terms of course content and international recognition.If anyone who absolved the PRMIA or the FRM could help me on this with an objective opinion, I would be very grateful.Regards

in the olden days, there was just GARP and the FRM certificate.Then there was a major scandal at GARP and the majority of the regional directors left in disgust and started PRMIA.Initially, the prm exam syllabus was near identical to that of frm (frm primarily used one book by jorion, the frm handbook, and prm used another book by jorion, value at risk, which was very similar to the other jorion book). Nowadays, prm uses the electronic prm handbook, of which our leader Professa' Wilmott is one of the authors.The two certs are still very very similar in content and in terms of recognition.The main reason for choosing one over the other would be the relative strengths of the local chapters where you live.

PRM is lot more flexible in terms of the date and place. You can take the four levels in four sittings. Besides, you can take it any time of the year. FRM is typically held once a year (not sure if they changed their policy now) and its a paper based test. Also, I found PRM to be somewhat more quantitative than FRM. There were lot more problems in quant section that dealt with PCA , etc - something which I think FRM does not cover. Both exams however, are not very quantitative ( definetly more than the CFA kinds though). Also, for FRM- I think there is a yearly annual fee, i.e., after they award you the desingation. With PRM it is FREE.

Does size matter??!!PRMIA's 1301 pages PRM Handbook versusGARP's 713 pages FRM Handbook

Any thoughts on the overlap between two exams. Do they cover almost similar subject areas? I was planning to take FRM after completing PRM.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperin the olden days, there was just GARP and the FRM certificate.Then there was a major scandal at GARP and the majority of the regional directors left in disgust and started PRMIA.I love hearing about scandals. Any historical lesson that you can share with us regarding the old GARP?

QuoteOriginally posted by: razrAny thoughts on the overlap between two exams. Do they cover almost similar subject areas? I was planning to take FRM after completing PRM.that would be redundant...

QuoteOriginally posted by: PlasticSaberQuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperin the olden days, there was just GARP and the FRM certificate.Then there was a major scandal at GARP and the majority of the regional directors left in disgust and started PRMIA.I love hearing about scandals. Any historical lesson that you can share with us regarding the old GARP?garp scandalit was actually discussed here at wilmott at the time.Not that exciting: it started as not-for-profit and then the founders realized they could make a boat-load of money out of it

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppaupergarp scandalit was actually discussed here at wilmott at the time.Not that exciting: it started as not-for-profit and then the founders realized they could make a boat-load of money out of itI see. The good old operational risk. I wonder if it forms part of the case studies in the FRM curriculum

PRM > FRM

why PRM > FRM? In term of recognition ? or course structure? Since FRM has longer history wor.

QuoteOriginally posted by: sd786Does size matter??!!PRMIA's 1301 pages it's a nice book, imho. u don't need to read entire book for exam. there's a lot of stuff which is useful to know but wont be in exam

what else is useful for the exam beside the handbook. Does the course offered by Kesdee help?