Read about universities that benefited from Bloomberg Finance Labs.
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan aims to establish a diverse, thriving and globally competitive economy in the Kingdom.
In 2018, Bloomberg partnered with the MiSK Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation established by H.R.H. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, to equip the next generation of Saudi leaders with the skills they need to become active participants in the knowledge economy
Providing financial training and technology at Saudi universities
The MiSK Academy Bloomberg Education Initiative is creating financial training programs and finance labs at 30 selected Saudi Arabian universities, including Riyadh’s King Saud University, the College of Business Administration at Prince Sultan University and Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, helping students and professors strengthen their understanding of the financial markets, business landscape and international economy. The comprehensive financial training effort will target 262,000 students and includes dedicated training for each university, support for faculty staff and professors to integrate capital markets content into their curricula, Bloomberg Terminals at each university, and networks to establish a bridge between universities and the professional world.
Helping Saudi students hone their skills
Held in collaboration with MiSK Academy, The Bloomberg Trading Challenge Saudi Arabia is an annual competition designed to help students develop their skills in financial data analytics — and learn to see the market through the eyes of those who use the Terminal every day.
The inaugural competition, the first of its kind in the Middle East, took place in April 2019, and involved 52 teams comprised of 250 students from 12 universities across the country. The teams competed over eight weeks, using the Terminal to mimic real-world trading and vied to generate the most valuable portfolio from a SAR 3 million notional amount. Teams used the Terminal the same way portfolio managers, investment analysts and traders do: defining their market assumptions, developing a return-generating strategy and execute trades over a closed network.
The five top-performing teams — two from Al Yamamah University, and one from each of Princess Norah Bint Abdul Rahman University, King Faisal University and Prince Sultan University — were invited to present their investment thesis and results to a judging panel made up of senior investment professionals from HSBC Asset Management Saudi Arabia, GIB Capital, Al Rajhi Capital and Bloomberg L.P.
For the winning team from Al Yamamah the competition provided a valuable bridge between classroom theory and real-world investing: “It was fun and exciting to participate in the competition,” said team member Faris AlShawy.
How King Saud University prepares its graduates to stand out
Profile
King Saud University • Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia • Website: ksu.edu.sa • Enrollment: 61,704, including graduate students • Academic staff: 7,614 • Contact: finance@ksu.edu.sa • Customer since: 2018
Preparing students to be successful after graduation requires giving them the skills, knowledge and experience they need to excel in the workplace. By partnering with Bloomberg, one university gave its students just such an advantage — and enhanced its own reputation in the process.
Delivering valuable experience
Consistently ranked among the top universities in the Middle East, King Saud University has an outstanding reputation in most industries, including finance, and a history of partnership with major companies and institutions in the financial industry. It turned to Bloomberg to give its students knowledge and experience of industry leading tools and technology.
As part of the MiSK Academy Bloomberg Education Initiative, KSU installed a Bloomberg Lab to give students in the finance department access to the financial information and ratios they need to do their required analysis, and equip them with hands-on experience of the Bloomberg Terminal® to make them more competitive in the work environment.
An essential tool for success
More than 200 students use the Bloomberg Lab, which is incorporated into a number of courses on the syllabus, including Asset Management, Portfolio Theory, Essentials of Investment and Derivatives Markets. The Lab enables students to become familiar with the Terminal, which KSU sees as an essential tool for their future success.
Students use the Terminal to obtain financial data, company information and financial ratios in order to make decisions and manage their artificial portfolios. The lecturers were able to assign more advanced projects and homework knowing that their students would have 24/7 access to Terminal functions to obtain the detailed information they needed for tasks such as portfolio optimization.
Ready for every opportunity
Prior to the establishment of the Bloomberg Lab, graduates were often unfamiliar with the Terminal, which made them less competitive in the job market than students from some other institutions. “Incorporating the Terminal into courses has increased students’ readiness and raised the standing of KSU graduates within the industry,” said Dr. Asem Alhomaidi, an assistant professor at the university. “It is already reflecting positively on the university’s reputation.” Students also obtain the Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC) certificate, which shows they are familiar with key Terminal functions and have a sound understanding of the financial industry.
Providing Prince Sultan University students with the data they need to succeed
College of Business Administration, Prince Sultan University • Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia • Website: psu.edu.sa • Undergraduate enrollment: 600* • Graduate enrollment: 100* • Academic staff: 70* • Contact: Dr. Saad A. Almosa, Dean salmosa@psu.edu.sa • Customer since: 2018
*Figures represent College of Business Administration only.
Employability of graduates is a key concern for every university. With so many employers in the finance industry asking candidates about their level of experience with the Terminal from their earliest interviews, one university saw how partnering with Bloomberg can increase the confidence and competitiveness of its students.
Hands-on analysis with real-world data
Established in 1998, Prince Sultan University was the first private, non-profit higher educational institution in Saudi Arabia. It consists of several colleges including the College of Business Administration (CBA), which offers various programs including Accounting, Marketing, Finance, Aviation Management and an MBA. A participant in the MiSK Academy Bloomberg Education Initiative, PSU set up a Bloomberg Lab on campus to provide students with handson experience of real-life financial analysis and valuation and enable faculty staff to assign projects that required detailed — previously unavailable — data for analyses.
Adding depth and value to assignments
The Bloomberg Lab has already been incorporated into CBA courses on Capital investment & Financing, International Finance, Security Analysis and Portfolio Management, Cases in Financial Management, and Financial Management. More than 100 students use the Lab during and after their classes, with instructors illustrating their lectures with information extracted from the Terminal and assigning projects that require students to use the collect and analyze market, industry and company data.
Students also use the Terminal to carry out tasks including data extraction, technical and fundamental analysis, analysis of financial statements, stock returns and the cost of capital, as well as participate in competitions such as the Bloomberg Trading Challenge and CFA Research Challenge. Students also complete the Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC) certificate as an assignment.
New ways of teaching
Working with Bloomberg has given PSU students access to the real-life data they need to simulate portfolio trading and carry out data analysis, adding interest to courses by making them more practical and adding value to their qualifications by better preparing them for the workplace. The lab has also changed the way CBA lecturers teach, enabling them to incorporate real life examples into their courses — particularly in upper-level finance courses — and assign projects that were not feasible before, due to the requirement of specific data. The lab has also benefited the instructors in their own academic research.
Students at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University are a match for any competition
Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University • Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia • Website: pnu.edu.sa • Enrollment: 52,3084, including graduate students • Academic staff: 3,767 • Contact: Ms. Hadeel AlJasser, Lecturer Finance, College of Business & Administration hadeelksj.pnu@gmail.com • Customer since: 2018
The mission of Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University is to become a comprehensive university for women, distinguished through academic leadership and scientific research that contributes to building a knowledge economy with societal and international partnerships.
Part of a growing focus on women's education
PNU is one of the outcomes of the greater attention being given to the higher education of women in Saudi Arabia, which started when the General Presidency for the Education of Girls established the first college for women in 1970. The inauguration of more colleges, ranging from university to intermediary and community colleges, followed and they now total 102 in more than 72 Saudi cities, with around 600,000 students enrolled.
Placing a priority on practical experience
One of PNU’s key aims is to give its students practical knowledge, teaching them how to apply theory in the real world in order to produce graduates that are more useful to potential employers. Installing a Bloomberg Lab as part of the MiSK Academy Bloomberg Education Initiative assisted PNU to implement that goal, providing students with access to market data and analytics, and the hands-on experience of market tools and solutions that employers value.
“It has given students real world knowledge, using live and real-time data as opposed to having to refer to hypothetical situations,” said Ms. Hadeel
AlJasser, Lecturer Finance, College of Business & Administration. “It has also given them a head start in terms of accessing investment data, understanding how to invest, as well as how the government issues bonds etc.”
Engendering a competitive spirit
PNU’s students have been particularly excited about participating in the Bloomberg Trading Challenge. “It has given them an outlet for their investment ideas in a competitive environment,” said AlJasser. “They’re getting exposure to the Terminal, which many Saudi companies are using, and access to financial information without having to manually pull the data. The Bloomberg Lab has raised the standard of our students and the reputation of the university overall.”
Zayed University, one of the United Arab Emirates’ top universities, and Bloomberg, opened the Bloomberg Finance Lab at the university’s Dubai campus in February this year. Her Excellency Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development and President of Zayed University, and Matthew Winkler, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Bloomberg News, officially launched the Bloomberg Finance Lab, which is the largest of its kind in the Middle East.
Zayed University joins more than 800 universities worldwide with Bloomberg Terminals or Finance Labs. With 64 Bloomberg Terminals across campuses in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Zayed University has more Terminals available to students and professors than any other university in the Middle East.
“We are thrilled to be here today and be part of this important milestone. Students and professors at Zayed University will now have access to the same market-moving news and data relied on by the world’s leading business and financial professionals,” added Matthew Winkler, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Bloomberg News. “We hope that the training and coursework offered by the Bloomberg Finance Lab will advance the careers of hundreds of students in the U.A.E., so that they can play an active role in the country’s evolving economic landscape.”
The Bloomberg Terminal service is a seamlessly integrated solution that provides real-time and historical data, market moving news and analytics to help leading business and financial professionals worldwide make better informed investment decisions. The service also features execution platforms for every asset class, research and a global network to communicate securely and reliably.
The Bloomberg Finance Lab will help undergraduate and graduate students build the skills needed for a career in finance. Students will also have access to Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC), an e-learning certification course, and CFAPRO, a database that maps the CFA Institute Candidate Body of Knowledge to over 387 relevant Bloomberg Terminal functions. Students of the undergraduate and master’s programs will receive training on the use of the Bloomberg Terminal, as well as courses on investment, risk and portfolio management. The lab will also be accessible to the university’s academic community to conduct research projects.
About Zayed University
Zayed University is a national and regional leader in educational innovation. Founded in 1998 and proudly bearing the name of the Founder of the Nation – the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, this flagship institution has met the President’s high expectations. Today, Zayed University has two modern campuses in Dubai and Abu Dhabi that welcome both national and international students.
Globally recognized as the leading university in the region for excellence in educational innovation, research, and student leadership development that serves the changing needs of the nation in economic, social and cultural advancements
Proudly bearing the name of the nation’s founding President, Zayed University is a federal institution that prepares bilingual graduates to contribute to and advance all aspects of society. Our mission is carried out from two major campuses in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Matthew Winkler, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Bloomberg News, presents to students at the Zayed University Bloomberg Finance Lab