This year's crop of candidates for the Chartered Financial Analyst exam will mark a dramatic reversal from earlier decades, when candidates from Wall Street dominated the test for what is considered a core qualification for work in the securities industry. Asia will, this year, field 52,900 students for the exam against 45,400 from the US, with the fastest growth coming from India and China, which fielded few CFA candidates a decade ago.

Both countries are now fielding more candidates than either Canada or the UK.

The Asian tilt indicates the degree to which a new generation of professionals in the region are embracing the core principles of Western-style finance and market investment theory. This could have profound implications for the way that capital markets skills are now being dispersed throughout the world -- not least because it is occurring just as developing regions, such as Asia, are now becoming increasingly cash rich.

The shift could also lead to changes in the ethnic composition of investment banks and asset management groups, even in the West. Robert Johnson, managing director of the CFA institute in the US, said: "This shows that the investment management business is becoming more globally integrated."

The CFA exam was created in 1953 in the US to teach core investment principles to securities industry professionals. It was initially taken by analysts, but its popularity has recently spread among asset managers and traders, prompting an explosion in candidates: 140,000 candidates will sit this year's exam, mostly in a concentrated burst next month, a 20 per cent increase on last year. Traditionally, only half the CFA exam candidates actually pass the gruelling test, while more drop out during the course, which typically lasts four years.

Rajiv Vyas, a CFA originally form Mumbai and now working at the Baltimore-based money manager MTB Investment Advisors, says the CFA is now a passport for people in emerging markets to work in financial services anywhere in the world.

As reported yesterday, around 7,000 Indian students registered with the CFA institute will not be able to appear for their exams, scheduled on June 3, since the All Indian Council for Technical education has issued a show cause to the institute, asking it to stop its operations in India with immediate effect.

Even as it prepares to move court against the AICTE notice, the institute has decided to give its students three options: Cancel their examination enrollment for June 2007 and get a refund of the enrollment fees, write the examination in December (assuming the verdict goes in favour of the CFA institute) or take the examination on June 3 at a location outside India.

Meanwhile, Indian enrollments for the CFA course has gone up by 129 per cent this year to 10,500 students.