The Certificate In Sentiment Analysis And Alternative Data For Finance (CSAF™)
The Certificate in Sentiment Analysis and Alternative Data for Finance (CSAF) programme is an instructor-led course designed for finance professionals by leading Algorithmic Traders, Sentiment Pundits, Quantitative Modelling experts and HFT thought leaders.
CSAF is comprehensive and offers unparalleled insights into the world of Algorithms and the latest thinking in financial technology. Perfect to develop your career in modern methods in finance, it covers various aspects of trading, investment decisions & application using News Analytics, Sentiment Analysis and Alternative Data.
programme benefits
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Praveen Kumar K
India
I attended the CSAF course from Jan 2022 to June 2022 and it gave a substantial boost to my career in Quantitative finance. The theory lectures a… See More
I attended the CSAF course from Jan 2022 to June 2022 and it gave a substantial boost to my career in Quantitative finance. The theory lectures and use case lectures were delivered by world-leading experts in this field covering a wide range of topics such as sentiment-enhanced equity trading strategies, portfolio allocation of institutions using Macro-sentiments, Crypto assets, and ESG Investments.
I particularly enjoyed the practical classes in which we could experiment with what we have learned. The practical class is quite interactive and the faculty helped me to implement a sentiment-enhanced portfolio allocation strategy.
Suraj Sakaria
India
A comprehensive and well-structured instructor-led course to understand the various aspects of trading and investment decisions using Sentiment A… See More
A comprehensive and well-structured instructor-led course to understand the various aspects of trading and investment decisions using Sentiment Analysis. The faculties come with impressive industry experience and the end of the session Q&A is very insightful. Would highly recommend the course to anyone who wants to explore the world of Sentiment Analysis in Finance.
Abdul Akbar Khan
Saudi Arabia
I highly recommend the Certificate in Sentiment Analysis and Alternative Data for Finance (CSAF) course that I recently took. The course is taugh… See More
I highly recommend the Certificate in Sentiment Analysis and Alternative Data for Finance (CSAF) course that I recently took. The course is taught by Professor Gautam Mitra, who is a leading expert in the field and provides unparalleled insights into the world of algorithms and the latest thinking in financial technology.
The course is comprehensive and covers a wide range of topics, including trading, investment decisions, and the application of news analytics, sentiment analysis, and alternative data. As a finance professional, I found it to be an extremely valuable learning experience that has helped me to develop my career in modern methods in finance.
Additionally, the lectures by Dr. Cristiano Arbex Valle were particularly memorable and added a lot of value to the course. I also found that being called upon first in class alphabetically helped me to stay focused and set the direction for other students in the class.
Overall, I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to enhance their knowledge and skills in the field of finance.
60+
Hours Live Lectures
18+
World Class Faculty
350+
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90+
Participant Countries
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programme features
Project work opportunity
Scholarships and Financial Aid
Lifetime access to latest course content
Verified Certification from QuantInsti, UNICOM and OptiRisk Systems
Exclusive Community benefits
Gain industry exposure with comprehensive Case Studies
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Curriculum
1 Primer
- Knowledge of basic trading procedures and basics of algorithmic trading: know and understand the terminology
- Understand statistical methods and statistical measurements including autocorrelation function, partial autocorrelation function, Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE)
- Basic knowledge of time series analysis, stationarity of time series, and forecasting using ARIMA
- Fundamentals of Autoregressive and GARCH Models, and understanding volatility
- Logistic regression to predict the conditional probability of the market direction
- Different methodologies of evaluating portfolio and strategy performance (back-testing methodologies and statistical figures for evaluation including Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio, Max drawdown)
- Basic knowledge of Asset Allocation Models
- Understand all the most practical indicators and oscillators (e.g., RSI, MA, EMA)
- Distinguish between Macroeconomic and Microeconomic news
- Basic knowledge of models for spot prices, futures prices
- General knowledge of types of multifactor models and updating a traditional factor model
- Knowledge on the basics of the financial market in general and the stock market in particular
- A clear understanding of the type of instruments and the stock markets.
- Understand the concept of the stock market index and its calculation
- Basic knowledge of machine learning, pattern recognition as well as Natural Language Processing (NLP)
2 Module 1: Sentiment: What and Whose
- Understanding investor sentiment and the pendulum of investors’ emotions
- The role of “Noise Traders” in driving the asset prices in the financial markets
- Media sentiment and how it affects asset prices
- Market sentiment and its measurement
- Determining crowd sentiment and its impact on financial markets
3 Module 2: Sentiment Data
- Classical newswires and macroeconomic announcements
- Various Sources of sentiment data such as news, social media, and search engines
- The impact of Micro-blogging platforms on stock markets
- Converting qualitative information to the sentiment score
- Using bag-of-words, natural language processing and lexicon-based methods in sentiment analysis
4 Module 3: Structure and Coverage
- News analytics (Meta) data structure
- The exact polarity of sentiment in the news
- News characteristics such as relevance, novelty, and sentiment scores
- Leading data providers for sentiment data analysis in finance
- Description of the data provided by major sentiment vendors
5 Module 4: Other Sources: Alternative Data (I)
- Scheduled (expected) and Unscheduled (unexpected) financial news
- Macroeconomic news and their usage in automated trading
- Relevance and use of alternative data in sentiment analysis
- Major types of alternative data
- Different categories of alternative data such as satellite data, geolocation data, etc.
- Providers of alternative data
- Taxonomy of models
6 Module 5: Models to Exploit Sentiment Analysis (I)
- Taxonomy of models
- Descriptive, normative, prescriptive and decision models explained
- Modelling and information architecture
- Examples of modelling in the domain of finance
- The key role of time and uncertainty in decision making
7 Module 6: Models to Exploit Sentiment Analysis (II)
- Financial applications of sentiment data and their properties
- Risk management through risk quantification: risk computed for exposures of varying time spans, namely, weekly, monthly, or annualized
- Fund rebalancing on calendar dates: weekly, monthly, yearly
- Automated trading daily or intraday
- Retail application (creditworthiness, loan, and savings advice)
8 Module 7: Opinion and Biases
- Various challenges in the area of sentiment analysis
- Distinction between opinions and facts
- Role of behavioural finance in investor decision making
- Different types of biases that affect investor behaviour in financial markets
- Revisiting the pendulum of fear and greed
9 Module 8: AI, Machine Learning & Quantitative Models to predict market direction
- Quant models and AI & ML models- overview
- Interaction of Quant Models and AI & ML models to predict market direction
- Supervised and Unsupervised learning models
- Models for predicting market direction: K-Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree Models, ANN, LSTM, SVM
- Trading Strategies using Quantitative Models and Machine Learning
10 Module 9: Role of Alternative Data in Financial Trading: Alternative Data (II)
- Rapid growth of Alternative Data in recent decades
- Improvement of technical ability to process data
- Categorization of Alternative Data and Application in Finance
- Use of Alternative Data to obtain insight into the Investment process
- Capture the predictive power of Alternative Data in Financial Trading
11 CSAF Exam
- CSAF requires you to successfully clear the Examination
- The exam is conducted in a proctored environment both at the Prometric centres in 80+ countries and remotely
Case studies
1 Grasping Behavioural Finance by Anthony Luciani
- MarketPsych has built a sentiment analytics suite on investor-relevant media from thousands of online sources with hundreds of over-arching themes and topics covering all major asset classes.
- In these sessions, we explore how the stationary processes of psychology interact with the nonstationary processes of financial markets.
- Witness two major themes of investor over- and under-reaction to the news.
- See cycles of fear and their interactions with crude oil prices.
- Find solutions to common questions within the field of sentiment analysis for markets.
- Observe how new themes become more predictive over time.
2 Classifying Earnings Calls & News by Dan Joldzic
- Alexandria Technology develops natural language processing (NLP) software to convert text into data.
- Alexandria uses machine learning to identify key phrases in financial documents such as news reports, press releases, earnings calls, and filings.
- There are official sources of information such as newswires (Dow, Reuters, Bloomberg), company filings (10-Qs, 10-Ks), earnings calls, research reports.
- News classification and its impact on asset returns.
- Two types of news: company-specific news and economic news.
- News works better on short time horizons like 1 week or lesser. For greater time horizons, alpha decays.
- Unstructured news can be converted to structured data showing information on Ticker, topic and sentiment score.
- We look at the ratio of positive news reports to negative news reports of a company on a day to create a sentiment score. These companies belong to the US all cap.
3 NLP And ML Techniques in Finance: Some Examples by Dr. Matteo Campellone
- Datasets based on proprietary algorithms as Alternative Data.
- Introduction to the Brain Sentiment Indicator.
- Introduction to the Brain Language Metrics on Company Filings dataset.
- A workflow that uses ML and NLP for thematic selection.
4 Asset Allocation Enhanced by Sentiment Data by Dr. Zryan Sadik and Prof. Christina Erlwein-Sayer
- Introduction and Background.
- Market Data and News Data.
- Asset Allocation Strategy.
- Construction of Filters.
- Empirical Investigation.
- Discussions and Conclusion.
5 ESG in Factors by Dr. Katharina Schwaiger
- Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) signals are an important part of factor-based investing strategies as they can stem from the same economic rationales as general factor premiums.
- Because factors are broad and diversified, building portfolios by jointly optimizing factor exposures with ESG and carbon outcomes can result in similar historical performance as benchmark factor portfolios that do not include those considerations.
- We show how sustainable signals, which often involve alternative data, can be integrated into the definitions of factors themselves.
- We offer two examples of green intangible value and corporate culture quality which enhance traditional financial value and quality factors, respectively.
6 Using traditional structured data for long-term analysis of publicly-traded equity and using alternative, unstructured data for short-term analysis of public and private equity by Dr Keith Black
- Quantitative investors have long used traditional data sources, such as income statements and balance sheets of public firms, to drive stock selection models.
- Factors such as value, growth, earnings quality, and earnings surprise can be effective at predicting the long-term performance of publicly-traded stocks.
- With the explosion in the amount and diversity of data in the last five years, alternative data sources are quickly revolutionizing quantitative investing.
- Alternative data sources can include natural language processing of news and social media content, review of credit card transactions and consumer emails, and geolocation data using cell phone signals and satellite images.
- Alternative data is more complex to process, moves in a different time frame than traditional data and may provide a new window into information availability for private companies.
7 News Sentiment Analysis in Em Sovereign Debt research, Investment and Risk Management by Jacob Gelfand and Kamilla Kasymova
- We present the internally developed framework for ex-ante analysis of the foreign exchange and sovereign bond markets based on the news sentiment in global and local media, the Global Economy and Markets Sentiment (GEMS) model.
- The predictive analytics from the GEMS model are used to enhance the fundamental analysis to better assess risks and opportunities in the Emerging Markets sovereign debt market.
- We introduce the long-term and short-term trading strategies based on the produced GEMS analytics and spearhead the discussion about the predictive qualities of the produced analytics.
8 The Art of (Alternative) Data Science by Ganesh Mani
- The dynamic world produces data that is constantly changing. Financial markets can be particularly mercurial, triggered by geopolitical events, regulation changes, industry news and the earnings outlook of companies.
- Exploiting data science to explain or predict the ebb and flow of security prices can be a bit of an art. Knowing which data – from the plethora of traditional and alternative datasets – to focus on, what techniques to use (e.g., traditional statistical, historical-data-intensive deep learning, reinforcement learning, forward-looking simulations or a combination); and, what aspects to the model are nuanced decisions that will significantly affect portfolio risk and return.
- Human-machine teaming is also a focus area and I hope to address some of the above themes in my brief presentation. A subsequent panel will elicit multiple opinions in this milieu.
9 Using alternative data: from research to production by David Jessop
- The use of alternative data is a necessary part of many investment processes running today.
- There is, however, a difference between running a one-off analysis and having a regular process running in production.
- In this lecture, we will provide some advice and suggestions for all stages of this process.
10 ESG Data and Investment Returns by Richard Peterson
- Learn How Esg Perceptions And Controversies Are Detected In News And Social Media Using AI.
- Identify Which Esg Factors Have Been Leading Shares Higher, And Which Are Irrelevant (Or Even Damaging) To Shareholder Value.
- See How Specific ESGH Controversies Affect Corporate Share Valuations Over Time.
11 A Quantitative Metric for Corporate Sustainability by Dan DiBartolomeo
- In recent years the concept of “sustainability” companies has been at the forefront of concerns for many investors. As most consideration of sustainability has focused on the broad ideas of ESG concerns (Environmental, Social, Governance) the field has lacked a straightforward metric by which investors can assess “How many years into the future is a given company likely to survive without bankruptcy?”.
- While somewhat similar to a credit rating, such a measure must also consider the situation of firms with no current debt, and those that are pathologically conservative so as to survive until eventually becoming obsolete.
- Such a metric was introduced by Dan diBartolomeo (Journal of Investing, 2010) based on an extension of the Merton contingent-claims model (Journal of Finance, 1974). In this study, we illustrate refinements of the methodology and present empirical analysis of the relationship between the sustainability metric and investor returns from 1992 through 2021 for all equities traded on US exchanges (inclusive of non-US firms traded in ADR form).
- The results show statistically significant relationships that may be exploited for superior returns in both equity and corporate bond markets.
12 Creating a strategy using Machine Learning by Dr. Ernest Chan
- Most investors found it hard to generate sustainable alpha by machine learning.
- Machine learning algorithms are the ultimate "Black Boxes", offering no hint on why a trade is made.
- Those characteristics have impeded the adoption of machine learning in asset management.
- However, Corrective AI and Conditional Portfolio Optimization are two machine learning methods that have the potential to bring practical benefits to asset management.
- Corrective AI is the use of machine learning to compute a probability of profit of an existing trading strategy, while Conditional Portfolio Optimization is the use of machine learning for portfolio optimization.
- This lecture will discuss why these methods both work better and provide more transparency than traditional applications of ML to asset management.
13 Discussion on Project Results
- Objectives: To introduce to the participants a guideline for preparing technical reports of empirical investigations; how to develop an experimental project; and simultaneously prepare for report writing.
- Learning Outcomes: Develop a generic approach to preparing Technical Reports and develop reports collaboratively as a team.
Project Work
1 Introduction to News Data
- In this session, we get acquainted with the sample of news analytics data provided as part of the course. The data is provided for a selection of American stocks. We process both market data and news data and produce some data visualisations as well as a suggested rolling sentiment score for the S&P500 index.
2 Producing your own News Sentiment
- The main goal of this session is to produce news analytics from news headlines. We collect publicly available headlines for specific companies from a website via a simple web scraper. We then use a natural language processing package in Python to produce news sentiment based on the collected data.
3 News Impact Calculation (I)
- In these sessions, we first give a short lecture on the concept of news impact scores. We then proceed to develop a notebook which calculates news impact for the sample data provided. We start by transforming the multiple scores into a single News Sentiment Value (NSV).
4 News Impact Calculation (II)
- We implement the calculation of news impact based on NSV. Finally, we produce some data visualisations based on the news impact series.
5 Momentum-based Strategy
- In this session, we first give a short lecture on the calculation of news impact-based momentum. We then implement the momentum calculation in a notebook and produce an investment strategy based on the momentum series. The strategy may invest in any of the stocks provided, as well as a risk-free asset. We also implement a simple backtesting tool in order to test different configurations of the strategy.
6 Portfolio Optimisation (I)
- In these sessions, we implement the Markowitz model for portfolio optimisation. Instead of using Python packages that solve this model, we implement it from scratch. This allows us to easily customise the optimisation model in order to generate more desirable portfolios. We then use news impact in order to produce different configurations of the Markowitz model. We produce backtesting results for a few configurations.
7 Portfolio Optimisation (II)
- We use news impact in order to produce different configurations of the Markowitz model. We produce back-testing results for a few configurations.
8 Discussion on Project Results
- Objective: To introduce to the participants a guideline for preparing technical reports of empirical investigations; how to develop an experimental project; and simultaneously prepare for report writing.
- Learning Outcome: Develop a generic approach to preparing Technical Reports and develop reports collaboratively as a team.
- Note: Students attending the Hands-on Project session will get access to Sentiment data from multiple data providers.
Certificate
CSAF is provided by QuantInsti, UNICOM and OptiRisk Systems.
QuantInsti is one of the world's biggest algorithmic & quantitative trading institutes, and today, it has learners from 200+ countries and territories.
Established in 1984, UNICOM is an events and training company specialising in the areas of Quantitative Finance and many aspects of IT.
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Faculty Members
Anthony Luciani
Anthony Luciani is a Senior Quantitative Analyst at MarketPsych. He is working on simplified sentiment and “Superforecasters” models. He developed sentiment-based financial models, previously for Optirisk. He has a Master’s Degree in Financial Mathematics from the University of Leicester.
Dr. Arkaja Chakraverty
Dr. Arkaja received her PhD from the Indian School of Business in Financial Economics in 2017; and is affiliated with Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Currently, she is based out of Melbourne, Australia and is working on a series of research papers. As of April 2021, Arkaja has joined the OptiRisk team as a Senior Research Associate (Consultant).
Prof. Christina Erlwein-Sayer
Prof. Christina is Professor of Statistics and Financial Mathematics at Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (HTW) Berlin and has worked at OptiRisk Systems as a quantitative analyst and senior researcher. She completed her PhD in Mathematics at Brunel University, London in 2008. She then worked as a researcher and consultant in the Financial Mathematics Department at Fraunhofer ITWM, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Dr. Cristiano Arbex Valle
Dr. Valle has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MSc in Operations Research from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In 2011 he joined OptiRisk as a software engineer and a researcher and obtained his PhD in the Department of Mathematical Sciences from Brunel University (UK) in 2014.
Dan diBartolomeo
Dan diBartolomeo is President and founder of Northfield Information Services, Inc. Based in Boston since 1986. Dan serves on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Quantitative Alliance and is an active member of the Financial Management Association, (“QWAFAFEW”), the Society of Quantitative Analysts. Dan is a Director of the American Computer Foundation as well.
Dan Joldzic
Dan Joldzic, CFA, FRM is CEO of Alexandria Technology, Inc, which develops artificial intelligence to analyse financial news. Prior to joining Alexandria, Dan served dual roles as an equity portfolio manager and quantitative research analyst at Alliance Bernstein where he performed factor research to enhance the performance of equity portfolios.
David Jessop
David Jessop has a MA in Mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. Currently, at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, David was previously the Global Head of Quantitative Research at UBS for over 17 years, Head of Quantitative Marketing at Citigroup & started his career at Morgan Grenfell, initially as a derivative analyst and then as a quantitative portfolio manager.
Prof. Enza Messina
Prof. Enza Messina is a Professor in Operations Research at the Department of Informatics Systems and Communications, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, and holds a PhD in Computational Mathematics and Operations Research from the University of Milano. She is a co-founder of Sharper Analytics, a spin-off from the University of Milano Bicocca.
Dr. Ernest Chan
Dr. Ernest Chan is the CEO of the financial machine learning firm Predictnow.ai, and an award-winning quantitative hedge fund manager and acclaimed quant finance author. He was previously a machine learning researcher at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Morgan Stanley, and a proprietary trader at Credit Suisse.
Ganesh Mani
Ganesh Mani is a Global executive and thought leader with deep experience in Pro-Active Intelligence (PAINT), NLP (METAPHOR), Multi-media analytics (ALADDIN); multiple patents. He has pioneered multiple innovations, leading teams using multi-modal (incl. alternative) data and augmented intelligence. He is a Mentor/advisor at many entities (e.g., TiE.org, Sabudh.org, FDPinstitute.org; IvyCap Ventures).
Jacob Gelfand
Jacob Gelfand, CFA is the Director of Quantitative Strategy & Research, Investment Risk Management. Jacob is an adjunct faculty in the Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. An MS in Computer Science from MSUCE, Russia, an MBA in Finance & Strategy from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he has experience working at Capgemini, Northwestern Mutual, & Mason Street Advisors (MSA).
Dr. Kamilla Kasymova
Dr. Kamilla Kasymova is a Quantitative Research and Analytics Director in the Investment Risk Management of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company since 2014. She has taught undergraduate mathematics and economics classes since her graduation. Sr. Kasymova has a BSc in Economics from Moscow State University, MS in Finance from the University of Ulm, MS in Mathematics and a PhD in Economics both from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Dr. Katharina Schwaiger
Dr. Katharina Schwaiger is an Investment Researcher of the Factor Based Strategies Group (FBSG) at BlackRock. She was a member of the ETF and Index Investments Product Innovation group and has worked as a lecturer at the London School of Economics. She has a BSc in Financial Mathematics & a PhD in Mathematics/Operational Research from Brunel University. She is a committee member of Quantess London.
Dr. Keith Black
Dr. Keith Black is an experienced award-winning author, course designer, and speaker with 30+ years of institutional investment experience in alternative investments. He is skilled in simplifying complex topics, like cryptocurrencies, hedge funds. He was the MD of CAIA and later MD of FDP Institute; he is a CFA, CAIA, and FDP charter holder. He has published 8 books and 15 refereed journal articles. He has served on the editorial board of the CFA Digest, the Journal of Alternative Investments, and The Journal of Investment Consulting.
Dr. Matteo Campellone
Dr. Matteo is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Brain, a company focused on the development of algorithms for trading strategies and investment decisions. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and a Master in Business Administration. Dr. Matteo’s past activities included Financial Modelling for financial institutions and Corporate Risk and Value-Based Management for industrial companies. As a Theoretical Physicist, he worked in the field of statistical mechanics of complex systems and of non-linear stochastic equations.
Dr. Richard Peterson
Dr. Peterson is CEO of MarketPsych Data which produces psychological and macroeconomic data derived from text analytics of news and social media. He is an award-winning financial writer, an associate editor of the Journal of Behavioral Finance, has published widely in academia, and performed postdoctoral neuroeconomics research at Stanford University.
Dr. Zryan Sadik
Dr. Sadik holds a Bachelors in Mathematics from Salahaddin University, Iraq, a Masters in Computational Mathematics with Modelling and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brunel University, London (2018). His research interests include news sentiment analysis, filtering in linear and nonlinear time series applying Kalman filters, volatility forecasting, optimization, risk assessment, and the role of news sentiment in financial markets.
ADMISSION PROCESS
Send your
Application
Get on a call
with a Counsellor
Application
acceptance
Pay the fee
and get started
Send your
Application
Get on a call
with a Counsellor
Application
acceptance
Pay the fee
and get started
Before admission, we will facilitate a one-on-one counselling session that will focus on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the participant. These sessions do not necessarily decide the participants' eligibility but help counsellors assist them with informed guidance prior to enrollment.
This programme aims to serve the participants who are equipped with high intellectual curiosity, possess a strong interest in finance and have analytical skills. This includes participants who come from various quantitative disciplines such as mathematics, statistics, physical sciences, engineering, operational research, computer science, finance or economics.
Course Duration
60+ hours including live sessions on case studies and project work
Lecture Duration
3 hours every weekend over Saturday and Sunday
Standard Programme Fees
| Tier | Global Participants | Indian Residents* |
|---|---|---|
| Super Early Bird Enrollment Fees | 2,999 | 1,49,900 |
| Early Enrollment Fees | 3,349 | 1,69,900 |
| Standard Enrollment Fees | 3,699 | 1,89,900 |
| Tier | Super Early Bird Enrollment Fees | Early Enrollment Fees | Standard Enrollment Fees |
| Global Participants | 2,999 | 3,349 | 3,699 |
| Indian Residents* | 1,49,900 | 1,69,900 | 1,89,900 |
Financial Aid
CSAF™ programme comes with Financial Assistance for the eligible participants
Scholarship by QuantInsti
Participants (Other than full time student) can Earn the Merit-based Scholarship. Go get it here!
Flexible Payment Plans
Flexible Payment Plans are available at 0% interest for full-time Indian residents.
Student Aid
QuantInsti encourages full-time students to enter this domain. Claim your benefits, if you are still pursuing full-time education.
Emerging Market Fee
Emerging market participants (Participants residing full time in countries with per capita GDP (nominal) less than USD 20,000 as per World Bank data), please share your details below to check for Emerging market fee eligibility.
FAQ
What are the fees for CSAF?
The complete fee details can be found in the admission section.
Can I register for EPAT and CSAF at the same time?
Yes, you may register for both at the same time, provided you are confident that you can keep up with the additional training hours.
Would I get a refund if I change my mind after enrolling on the programme?
We provide an opportunity to clear all your doubts about the programme prior to enrollment. Also, you get access to dedicated team support. Therefore, we follow a no refund policy.
What financial assistance is available?
Financial assistance provided to qualified applicants include but are not limited to the following:
- Student discounts - QuantInsti believes in investing in the future of tomorrow, the students of today. We have a discounted fee for full-time students.
- Participants from Emerging Markets - Special consideration is given to participants from Emerging Markets so that the programme is more affordable.
- Flexible Payment Plans - QuantInsti is partnered with financial institutes that provide education-related flexible payment plans to Indian resident participants.
Get in touch with our programme counsellors here.
What is the admission process for CSAF?
It is a simple three step process:
- Submit your application form here.
- Wait for your application to get accepted.
- Pay the fees.
Soon after the successful receipt of your EPAT fees & acceptance, you are given access to the learning management system (LMS portal) and your EPAT journey begins!
Before admission, we offer to facilitate a one-on-one counselling session that will focus on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the participant. These sessions do not necessarily decide the participants’ eligibility but help counsellors assist them with informed guidance prior to enrolment.
What are the Flexible Payment Plans offered?
QuantInsti has partnered with government approved NBFCs to facilitate 0% financial assistance with minimal documentation for the Indian resident participants. To apply for the assistance, you would be required to share following documents with QuantInsti:
- First and Last Name
- Scanned Copy of PAN Card & Aadhaar Card - This will help to generate your CIBIL score
- Last three months pay slip (in case of a salaried employee) or last three year filed ITR (in case of self-employed)
- Last 4 months bank statement
Once you share the mentioned documents, your programme manager will connect you with the respective NBFC associates. Respective NBFC will share the sanction letter (loan approval letter) on loan approval, and you can proceed with the downpayment as per the plan agreed with the NBFC associate.
On receipt of a defined downpayment and the payment from partnered NBFC, you'll get access to the Learning Management System (Primer Modules) to kick off your Algo and Quant learning journey.
What is the last date to apply for the upcoming batch?
The updated dates and fees related information is available here.
As an EPAT alumnus, what special benefits or discounts will I get for CSAF?
Special discounts are available for EPAT alumni. Please connect with your programme manager for more details.
What are the course requirements?
A personal machine with a good internet connection is all that is required to get started immediately. As soon as you enrol, you will be provided with learning material that will assist you through the entire duration of the programme. We recommend giving 15-20 hours per week to review and complete the course work within a period of 5 months before proceeding to the final exam.
Will I get a certificate for this programme?
Yes, you would be getting a certificate from QuantInsti, UNICOM and OptiRisk Systems, post successful completion of the programme.
What are the modules covered in this programme?
9 modules are covered in total. You can check out the curriculum for complete details of these modules.
What is the duration of the programme?
The duration of the programme is about 5 months. The live sessions would be conducted over the weekends (Saturday and Sunday) for this duration.
Who are the faculty for this course?
You can check the complete details of the faculty here.
How many hours of commitment is required on a weekly basis to perform well in the programme?
Typically 15-20 hours including 3-4 hours of live lectures are required weekly to do well in the programme.
What are my options if I can’t complete programme requirements within the allotted period of time? Can I move to a later batch?
Your dedicated Support Manager will help you throughout the programme to ensure that you do not lag behind. Even if it happens, then depending on the completion date, you may choose the self-paced learning option available with a few months of extension. You can apply for a batch defer to a later one, before the starting date of your enrolled batch. If your application is complete along with all required documents and it fulfils the required criteria, you could be moved to a later batch.
What is the minimum passing requirement for passing the CSAF exam?
The minimum requirements to be eligible for ‘Certification of Excellence’ includes a certain percentage of:
- Score in Live Project/s
- Score in the final examination
What are the prerequisites to start with the programme?
You need to have:
- A personal computer with the minimum configuration as: Operating system such as Windows: (Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10) or Mac: Mac (v 10.10), Mac(v 10.11), Mac(v 10.12), Mac(v 10.13).
- Additionally, you will need some software/programming languages installed on your system in order to have hands-on experience as well as finishing the program. The list of required software and the installation manuals will be shared with you before the programme starts.
- Language skills: You should be able to understand spoken and written English well.
- Enough time and motivation: You should be able to devote 15-20 hours on a weekly basis. The more the better!
Would the recordings of the lectures be provided?
Yes. Recordings of all the lectures would be made available to you on the LMS, once they are Live.
How to attend the sessions?
You can attend the sessions online with the link shared by the Support team to attend the lecture.
How will the lectures be conducted?
The lectures would be completely online.
When will the live sessions be conducted?
The live sessions would be conducted in evening hours in IST (after 1100 GMT) over the weekend ie. Saturday and Sunday.
How will the exam be conducted?
The exams would be conducted online and at Prometric centres globally. Participants can opt for either a remotely proctored exam (given they meet the pre-requisites) or write the exam at Prometric centres globally.
Are there any case studies explained in this course?
Yes, there are 13 case studies covered. You can check this section for complete details.
Would I get support for learning?
Yes. You would get continuous support from the Support Team throughout the programme.
Can I attend classroom sessions?
CSAF is 100% online. But, yes, you can attend a few classroom sessions in Mumbai, India, when the concerned faculty is based in Mumbai. Since most of the faculty members are located outside Mumbai, even if you are present in the QuantInsti classroom, you will be attending the lecture online. The weekly announcements mention the sessions happening in Mumbai. You can opt for writing the exam at your nearby centre of our exam partner or remotely from home, given the pre-requisites are met.
How will I, as a CSAF participant, interact with faculty members?
You will interact with the faculty in many ways:
- During the lecture you get to interact with the faculty
- Post or before the lecture, you get to share your doubts and queries which will be resolved by the faculty
- You can also interact with faculty through your support manager anytime
What kind of help/assistance is available to a CSAF participant?
- A dedicated Support Manager will guide you for the entire period of 5 months. Your manager will resolve your doubts and keep you motivated and engaged in this new and demanding career path
- You will get advice and answers from the faculty members who are industry practitioners
- We will share additional links & content with you to further enhance your learning
- A dedicated alumni cell is available post-completion to help you grow in the algo domain and network with fellow alumnus
- Lifelong access to updated lecture notes and videos after you complete the CSAF course successfully
