An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The In­sti­tute of Bank­ing and Fi­nance (IBF) turned the spot­light on its 2025 grad­u­at­ing class dur­ing its An­nu­al Vir­tu­al Grad­u­a­tion Cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day, high­light­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of cer­ti­fied fi­nan­cial ad­vi­sors poised to take on the chal­lenges of an evolv­ing, tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven fi­nan­cial land­scape.

The event un­der­scored the IBF’s on­go­ing push to strength­en pro­fes­sion­al­ism and in­tegri­ty across the sec­tor, while en­cour­ag­ing grad­u­ates to see their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as the start of a life­long jour­ney of growth and learn­ing.

Vale­dic­to­ri­an Nicholas Abra­ham, speak­ing on be­half of the class, re­flect­ed on the dis­ci­pline and de­ter­mi­na­tion re­quired to com­plete the rig­or­ous cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, much of which was done through self-study.

“Many of us nev­er met a sin­gle class­mate in per­son, yet we shared a com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence of late nights, long read­ings, and the qui­et re­solve to per­se­vere,” he said. “In that soli­tude, we dis­cov­ered our ca­pac­i­ty for en­durance and self-re­liance.”

Abra­ham, who en­tered the pro­gramme seek­ing pro­fes­sion­al ad­vance­ment, said the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion rep­re­sent­ed more than aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess; it re­flect­ed a com­mit­ment to eth­i­cal prac­tice and life­long learn­ing. He cred­it­ed the IBF’s ad­min­is­tra­tors, tu­tors, and sup­port staff for main­tain­ing a seam­less vir­tu­al en­vi­ron­ment and paid trib­ute to the fam­i­lies who sup­port­ed grad­u­ates through months of de­mand­ing study.

“Every small sac­ri­fice re­in­forced the be­lief that re­al growth is earned through con­sis­tent ef­fort,” he said, re­call­ing his per­son­al chal­lenge of mas­ter­ing tax­a­tion in the first lev­el of the course. “That wasn’t just a test of knowl­edge, it was a test of will.”

This year’s grad­u­a­tion theme, “Glob­al­ly Con­nect­ed: Em­pow­ered Through Knowl­edge,” cap­tured the IBF’s fo­cus on glob­al stan­dards and lo­cal im­pact. Abra­ham said the pro­gramme had pre­pared grad­u­ates to serve not on­ly clients in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but al­so those with cross-bor­der in­ter­ests and in­vest­ments. “We may re­main root­ed in our com­mu­ni­ties, but our learn­ing aligns with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards,” he said.

Draw­ing on his back­ground in IT Sys­tems En­gi­neer­ing, Abra­ham al­so high­light­ed the grow­ing in­ter­sec­tion be­tween fi­nance and tech­nol­o­gy, not­ing that da­ta se­cu­ri­ty and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy are now in­te­gral to client trust. “We’re not just man­ag­ing mon­ey, we’re man­ag­ing in­for­ma­tion,” he said.

De­liv­er­ing the wel­come ad­dress, Pres­i­dent of the In­sti­tute of Bank­ing and Fi­nance (IBF) Danielle Philip com­mend­ed the 2025 grad­u­at­ing class for their per­se­ver­ance and de­ter­mi­na­tion in com­plet­ing their stud­ies dur­ing what she de­scribed as “un­prece­dent­ed times.”

Philip said the event was not on­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess but al­so a tes­ta­ment to the dis­ci­pline and re­silience of the 67 grad­u­ates who man­aged to bal­ance work, per­son­al com­mit­ments, and study.

“This cer­e­mo­ny marks an im­por­tant mile­stone in your pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney,” she said. “You now join a grow­ing net­work of IBF grad­u­ates who have cho­sen to make bank­ing and fi­nance their pro­fes­sion, in­di­vid­u­als who con­tin­ue to strength­en the sec­tor through knowl­edge, ethics, and ser­vice.”

She al­so high­light­ed the In­sti­tute’s con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with UK-based Kei­th Check­ley and As­so­ciates and the Char­tered Banker In­sti­tute, not­ing that the col­lab­o­ra­tion has been in­stru­men­tal in main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards with­in IBF’s pro­grammes.

The 2025 cer­e­mo­ny al­so marked the fourth co­hort of grad­u­ates from the Cer­ti­fied In­ter­na­tion­al Risk Man­ag­er pro­gramme, one of the In­sti­tute’s flag­ship of­fer­ings in­tro­duced to meet the evolv­ing de­mands of the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor.