GAMF 全球财富管理论坛 2024年11月08日 18:20 北京 原创：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZV1hK13N0zwciW53jCcxig
10月26—27日，全球财富管理论坛·2024上海苏河湾大会顺利召开。金融建模协会理事长Paul SMITH在主题论坛上发表演讲。
Paul SMITH表示，发展中国家的绿色转型发展极具挑战性，金融领域在塑造转型的环境中可发挥重要作用，而金融建模是金融行业专业人士开展绿色转型业务的一项关键技能。在向可再生能源转型、提高能源使用效率或实施碳减排战略等实践方面，尤其在当今世界地缘政治方面、市场方面、绿色转型充满了变化的情况下，需要进行仔细的财务规划。而金融建模在应对绿色投资领域的不确定性、评估绿色投资的成本和收益、影响ESG评级及洞察公司未来表现等多方面可发挥关键作用。
我从1980年开始从事金融行业的工作，从1996年开始一直居住在香港，于2015年成为CFA协会的主席。我相信在座的很多人都是CFA证书的持有人。中国正在广泛地推进绿色金融发展和可持续性发展，我们也参与到其中。比如，2016年，我们赞助了中国举办的绿色金融论坛。我们在中国绿色金融发展方面已经有了很多经验，也大力推进了澳大利亚、东欧以及非洲地区的可持续性发展。发展中国家在可持续发展方面面临着很多独特的问题，比如正在努力克服贫困带来的很多社会问题、自身对于化石燃料也具有依赖性等。因而，发展中国家的可持续性发展和绿色转型对于整个世界来讲都是极具挑战性的。金融在应对这一类挑战方面可以发挥非常关键的作用。我喜欢把金融看作四条腿椅子上的第四条腿，其他三条分别对应政府、社会和教育。我们需要协力打造一个稳定的环境来推动发展中国家的绿色转型。今天，我要和大家分享一项具体技能。如果想要真正推动绿色转型，尤其是对于金融行业专业人士来讲，需要掌握金融财务建模的技能。我们生活的当今世界，无论是在地缘政治方面、市场方面还是绿色转型方面，都充满了变化。金融财务建模在应对这些变化时是非常关键的。金融建模协会（Financial Modeling Institute, FMI）的成立有助于将金融财务建模真正发展为一门学科。2024年起CFA协会将金融建模协会（FMI）的金融财务建模课程纳入其实用技能模块，成为CFA课程的一部分，是所有通过CFA一级考试后的学员的必修课程。我们希望能够将更多实用技能嵌入到CFA课程体系中。金融财务建模的实用技能模块目前是CFA课程中获得评价最高的部分，而金融建模协会（FMI）是全球金融财务建模领域的唯一认证机构。对于金融和会计专业人士，金融财务建模是非常核心的技能。我们很高兴与北京华琨基业教育科技有限公司合作，一同将金融建模协会的相关课程及认证引入中国。中国年轻人在教育方面，尤其是在提升自身技能方面具有极大的热情。简单来说，金融财务建模是使用电子表格来构建对公司未来财务表现的预测。实际上，所有的投资和估值决策都是基于模型来做出的。在绿色投资领域，投资结果存在如此多的不确定性，而金融财务模型可被广泛应用于描述这种不确定性，协助进行商业交易决策。金融财务模型对于绿色转型是非常重要的。转向可持续发展的实践需要进行仔细的财务规划，而这些规划都需要金融财务建模。在向可再生能源转型、提高能源使用效率或者推行碳减排战略等方面，我们都需要金融财务模型来评估绿色投资的成本和效益。金融财务模型还可以凸显出公司绿色战略是如何影响ESG评级的，从而提高公司对投资者的吸引力。另外，金融财务模型还可以帮助我们洞察公司在不同环境或者气候状况下的未来表现。通过金融财务建模把对复杂场景的预测融入到工作中是至关重要的。今天大会的主题是人工智能崛起。人工智能崛起可以大大提高金融财务建模的效率。但是，金融财务模型是达到目的的手段而不是目的本身。人工智能工具不能代替建模者做出判断，而只能进行一些赋能。金融建模协会（FMI）能够提供一系列的金融财务建模技能认证，同时也相应提供一些基础的和不同级别的课程。不同级别或不同模块的课程对应的认证都是相互独立的。我们希望通过推广金融财务建模的认证，帮助金融专业人士进行更成功地决策和资源配置。在通过FMI认证后，金融建模者具备为行业带来一流的、高效的决策所需的建模技能，能够规避建模过程中常见的所有错误。如果我们要实现成功的转型，金融将扮演着非常关键的角色。尤其在技术融资方面，金融财务建模绝对是其中的核心。I've suppose I've had a long career. I've been in finance since 1980, and been a resident of Hong Kong since 1996. I became the CFA president in 2015, and obviously many charter holders are here in China at the moment, and I'm sure many in this room today. And it was as part of that job that I held until I retired at the end of 2019 that I met many people in the green finance world and in the sustainability world in general here in China. Particularly noteworthy amongst those was Dr. Ma Jun, who became a very good friend and who invited us to co-sponsor China's Green Finance Forum in about 2016. So I've had a long experience with green finance here in China.When I retired, it gave me the encouragement, the inspiration to form my own sustainability. Grouping, called sustainable finance, which works in the developing world such as in Turkey, Eastern Europe and in Africa, trying to bring finance together with sustainability to create a bridge between those worlds, and particularly in the developing world, because the developing world faces so many unique challenges in sustainability.It obviously has a lot of social issues based around poverty that it is struggling to overcome, but it's also very fossil fuel dependent, whether that's as a user or as a producer of fossil fuels.The green transition in the developing world is something that is a real challenge for the world, in general, and something that I think finance has a key role to play in combating.And I like to think of finance as being "The Fourth Leg" on a chair: the first being government and regulation, the second being society and education of society, the third corporations and businesses, and the fourth is our finance industry. And they all need to work together to create a stable environment to enable us to execute that transition.But today I'm here to talk to you about a specific skill that I think we need to acquire or to be better at as financial professionals. If we are to really make that transition come alive and to happen, and specifically, that's financial modeling. We live as many of our speakers have talked to us today about in a changing and volatile world, whether that's geopolitics, whether that's markets, in general or the green transition. I think financial modeling is absolutely key to that.And so I became a founding shareholder and a director of the Financial Modeling Institute, www.FMInstitute.com back in about 2000 to help promote financial modeling as a discipline. To that end, we've managed to embed financial modeling in the CFA program, my old employers as part of the practical skills module in Level I. And indeed, that's now the highest rated component of the CFA program. CFA often gets criticized for not having enough practical content. And financial modeling has been introduced to try address some of that.The FMI offers the only global financial modeling accreditation. And I think that's extraordinary when you think about how core financial modeling is to our profession. And it's become probably the most important skill that finance and accounting professionals need. And we're delighted to have partners here in China with Hua Kun （华琨） that many of whose staff are present in the room today. And I'm sure you'll meet them over the course of these 2 days, who are also CFA program's partner here in China, the exclusive partner of CFA here to help bring this accreditation to China.My experience in China is that young Chinese people have an incredible thirst for education and incredible appetite for education, for acquiring the skills that are going to equip them to succeed in a complicated world. And it's a real thrill to be associated with them in that regard.So what is financial modeling? And why is it important? Financial modeling really is the use of a spreadsheet to build a forecast of a company's financial statements into the future. When you think about it, all investment and valuation decisions are really based upon models, and particularly in the green investment world where there is so much uncertainty of outcome. Financial models are used extensively to describe that to drive decisions in all business transactions. I think that's why it's so important to acquire this skill where scenario planning in a complex world becomes more and more important. These are the skills that you need to acquire, nothing really particularly earth shattering, as far as that's concerned, a facility with Excel, design and presentation, finance and accounting background and the ability to plan and collaborate.As I've tried to explain, financial modeling is really key to the green transition. The shift towards sustainable practices requires careful financial planning and financial modeling will play a vital role in evaluating the costs and benefits of green investments, such as transitioning to renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, or implementing carbon reduction strategies.Models can highlight our company's green strategy, impacts its ESG ratings and ESG ratings on a corporate level become ever more important to all of us in the world in which we live.Lastly, financial models can also provide insight into a company's future performance under different environmental and economic scenarios. And none of our crystal balls are really good enough to tell us how this is going to play out over the next 20 years. So having sophisticated scenario planning builds into what we do is absolutely crucial.And I think AI, one of the other strands for this conference is absolutely vital within that regard. Artificial Intelligence is going to help the modeler hugely. It's going to increase the sophistication of the modules of the models that we build. It's going to increase the variables, but we can add into those models. But remember, financial modeling is a process and a means to an end. It's not the end in itself. The end is a judgment. And a judgment is always fundamentally going to be given by a human. So we look AI as being a tool that is really going to assist us greatly going forward.These are the accreditations we offer. There's a foundation program, and then three levels. You get a badge for each level. So then you don't need to pass one to go to the other. They're all stand alone modules. And by promoting these, we hope that we can drive more successful decision making and resource allocation within our community. These some of the people we currently work with as far as this is concerned.So hopefully with an FMI accreditation, finance professionals are equipped to demonstrate that they have the modeling skills required to bring efficient, best in class, financial decision making to our industry. And in addition, clients can be confident that transaction risk has been reduced, because the modeler has excellent skills. If we are to transition successfully, finance has a huge role to play in funding new technologies. And I believe that modeling will be absolutely central to that.
