NIIT partners with ICICI bank to set up training institute

New Delhi, Oct 8: In a bid to provide trained manpower for the financial services sectors, Asia's largest IT trainer NIIT has launched a training institute--Institute of Finance, Banking and Insurance (IFBI)-- in partnership with the ICICI Bank.

''IFBI will utilise our reach and expertise in distributed non-formal education and harness the domain expertise of ICICI bank, to move into growing areas of the knowlegde economy,'' NIIT Chairman Rajendra S Pawar said here.

IFBI has introduced a six months full- time programme, the Post Gradutae Diploma in Banking Operations (PGDBO), for which the admissions will be commenced this month. The training programmes will be offered from various centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Calcutta.

''The explosive growth of the Indian banking and financial services sectors will be hampered by shortage of qualified people, unless we invest in educating and training professionals who can join the field,'' ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO K V Kamath said, adding that IFBI will replicate NIIT's achievement in creating skilled professionals in the IT areas.

The ICICI bank will recruit all the students of the first batch as Officers upon successful completion of the programme.

ICICI Bank will also provide education loans to the students selected for the PGDBO programme.

IFBI was jointly launched by ICICI Bank Manging Director and CEO K V Kamath and NIIT Chairman Rajendra S Pawar.

UNI