January 8th, 2002, 12:48 pm
I look at it the other way around. If you have an MSc in Finance, you should not find the CFA difficult. You need a decent memory and some study discipline, but it's not a major investment.Whether you need it or not depends on your resume and what you want to do. It is most valuable for people without educational credentials in finance, which is not your situation. However, it also shows a commitment to the practice of finance. If you have good practical work experience, you don't need it for that reason, but if you don't, it can make the difference. Finally, it is useful for establishing yourself to people outside of finance. This is important if you want to sell your services directly, say by starting a hedge fund. By extension, it's valuable to employers who sell directly; a hedge fund likes to have plenty of degrees and designations in the staff bios.The CFA is most appropriate for conventional money management. However many of the people you hope to impress with it won't know that.