The International Capital Market Association Centre (or ICMA Centre) is a department of the

Henley Business School Henley Business School is a business school which is affiliated with the University of Reading. It was formed by merging the previously independent Henley Management College (formerly the Administrative Staff College) with the existing business ...

within the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

, based in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

town of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education tailored to the

capital markets A capital market is a financial market in which long-term debt (over a year) or equity-backed securities are bought and sold, in contrast to a money market where short-term debt is bought and sold. Capital markets channel the wealth of savers t ...

industry. Established in 1991 with funding provided by the

International Capital Market Association The International Capital Market Association or ICMA is a not-for-profit global trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization found ...

(ICMA) in

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

through a partnership with the

, the centre is housed in a purpose-built modernist building, and was formally opened in March 1998 by Sir

Brian Unwin Sir James Brian Unwin (born 21 September 1935) is a former British civil servant and an author. He was chairman of the board of HM Customs and Excise and president of the European Investment Bank. He is also an author of historical non-fict ...

, then President of the

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...

. The centre's facilities include three dealing rooms where students learn how markets function and apply theory through simulations. The centre also provides two lecture theatres, several seminar rooms, information seating area and café bar. The upper floor of the centre houses the administrative and academic staff and doctoral researchers. In 2008, ICMA invested a further £5 million, which funded an expansion to the building. The extension includes the flagship 40 seat dealing room - the largest in Europe – which is sponsored in part by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

, as well as a 170-seat lecture theatre, new seminar rooms and a dedicated research area. The building is fitted with audio and visual technology allowing the

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

ing and webstreaming of lecture content. The new building opened for students at the start of the 2009-2010 academic session. ICMA's investment in the centre now totals over £10 million, making it the largest single corporate investment in any European business school.

Dealing rooms

The ICMA Centre provides three dealing rooms to complement theoretical learning. In 1994, a 20 terminal dealing room was opened and then on completion of the new building in 1998 a further two dealing rooms (Reuters I and II) opened with 62

workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

running

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

products – 3000 Xtra and the Reuters Traders product. These are complemented by the

Bloomberg terminal The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which use ...

, which provides a tool for

fixed income Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the pr ...

research. Research and project work are supported by economic and financial data from Datastream, ICMA and other sources and analytical, mathematical and statistical software. Reuters I also features a

plasma screen A plasma display panel is a type of flat-panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over diagonal) flat-panel displays to be released to the pub ...

displaying live market prices and news. The ICMA Centre is the largest non-investment bank Thomson Reuters populated facility in the world, having over 100 workstations, which is the size of a medium-sized investment bank's dealing floor. The dealing rooms are also used for computing work throughout the programmes, including Excel spreadsheet modelling,

Monte Carlo simulation Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be det ...

financial econometrics Financial econometrics is the application of statistical methods to financial market data. Financial econometrics is a branch of financial economics, in the field of economics. Areas of study include capital markets, financial institutions, corpo ...

and sessions on

market microstructure Market microstructure is a branch of finance concerned with the details of how exchange occurs in markets. While the theory of market microstructure applies to the exchange of real or financial assets, more evidence is available on the microstruct ...

References

External links

*
Official website of the International Capital Market Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Icma Centre University of Reading Business schools in England Buildings and structures of the University of Reading