Top of the class for the ICMA Centre

The ICMA Centre, University of Reading is set to have one of the largest Reuters equipped facilities in the world outside investment banks by 2008.

The ICMA Centre - supported by the International Capital Market Association - has been a strong supporter of teaching students the application of trading and already has two dealing rooms with 62 workstations, 40 of which are equipped with Reuters products. This year 30 workstations were upgraded with the latest version of Reuters 3000 Xtra, Reuters premium desktop product, and a further 10 with the new Reuters Trader product, which is a web-based system students will be able to access from any workstation.

The extension to the ICMA Centre which opens in October 2008, will include a new flagship dealing room with another 50 workstations which will also be equipped with Reuters 3000 Xtra - the ICMA Centre will then have a total of 112 fully equipped workstations, which equals the size of a medium sized investment bank's dealing floor.

Simon Walker, Director of Corporate Marketing & Communications at Reuters comments: "Reuters are delighted to be involved with setting up this facility for students at the ICMA Centre who will benefit greatly from using our state of the art equipment. This is an exciting opportunity for the students to experience what it is like in the real commercial world."

This means the ICMA Centre is poised to be the top school for those looking to pursue a career in high finance and dealing - lucrative careers which are highly competitive. Students from across the world already line up to study at the ICMA Centre and thanks to the 50 additional Reuters workstations in the run up to 2008, the exposure of students to financial products that are used in the "real world" is becoming even greater.

Reuters has long been a supporter of financial markets education and the ICMA Centre:

"The renewal of our commitment to the ICMA centre with upgraded infrastructure, products and branding is a natural manifestation of a successful relationship that started over 10 years ago. Students will be able to benefit from the latest technologies that are used in the financial industry and will learn how to play the markets without losing any real money. I am very excited that we will be able to explore further the many opportunities in financial markets education that both the Centre and Reuters share." Elke Behrend, University programme manager, Reuters Ltd.

The ICMA Centre was the first business school in Europe to have dealing room facilities and these facilities are more extensive than any other university/business school in the UK. In total the ICMA Centre has dealing rooms with a total of 62 terminals all dedicated to the practical application of finance, a facility that makes the ICMA Centre unique in Europe.

Finance is taught far more effectively when theoretical rigour is combined with practical application. As an integral part of their programmes, students are required not only to price and trade a variety of asset classes using dedicated teaching software, but also to manage a portfolio of equities using live prices. The dealing room environment is made all the more realistic through the use of telephones and open outcry during trading.

The ICMA Centre's Dealing Room Director, Dr Michael Smith commented that "Our state-of -the-art Reuters dealing rooms have been instrumental in producing students of the highest quality who are, in terms of their practical usefulness to an investment bank, far ahead of those who have had a more traditional theoretical finance education."

The centre will also feature two 50" plasma screen information points which will show the latest news from Reuters.