Introduction
Mission Statement
The Portuguese Bank Training Institute (IFB), with its School of Bank Management (ISGB), is the body of the Portuguese Banking Association (APB) that provides ongoing training and specialised higher education. Its mission is to strengthen the culture of the profession and support the development of the Portuguese financial sector by improving the qualifications of its human resources.
Vision – Client Oriented
The IFB is committed to being the banks' best choice in the field of professional training and specialised higher education.
In order to achieve this goal, it encourages each of its employees to look at business from the client's point of view. In other words, it does not look for clients for its products, but rather develops products for its clients. By clients we mean a combination of consumers, employees and partners.
Each employee at the IFB, whatever his or her position, has the job of providing clients with a positive, gratifying experience.
Targets
The targets of the IFB's services and products are essentially employees of the APB's member banks.
The range of training offered by the IFB is designed for this target population and is segmented as follows:
The range of training offered by the IFB is designed for this target population and is segmented as follows:
- Training of Candidates: young people aged from 15 to 25 with the 9th or 12th grade, depending on the course, who are candidates for banking jobs
- Basic Training: new employees and those with some experience, management staff, commercial assistants and account managers
- Intermediate Training: directors, middle managers and specialists with substantial professional experience
- Higher Education: professionals from the financial and other sectors and young people completing their secondary education and wishing to obtain academic qualifications in the area of banking
We regard ourselves as a "banking academy" providing the sector with a flexible range of consistent, integrated training based on three assets:
- Excellence of teaching
- Professional success
- Educative experience
Our Profile
The IFB offers its trainees flexible training methods to enrich their learning process with a permanent connection between the "academic" and "professional" components. We have a multidisciplinary team of pedagogical experts who produce teaching materials adapted to the different training methods used: classroom, apprenticeship and distance learning (paper-based, e-learning and b-learning).
Partnerships and Agreements
The Portuguese Bank Training Institute is a member of highly prestigious training organisations, such as:
- ICDE – International Council for Open and Distance Education
- EDEN – European Distance and E-learning Network
- EBTN – European Bank Training Network, of which the IFB was a founding member and first president. The main European national bank training organisations belong to the EBTN, whose central goal is to use training to promote the development of the financial sectors of central and eastern European and EU countries.
IFB has cooperation agreements with:
- European and African bank training institutes
- Portuguese universities: the Faculty of Economic and Corporate Sciences at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and the School of Economics and Management at Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
- Foreign universities: Manchester Business School in the UK and Insead in Fontainebleau, France
- Euronext Lisbon
Listening to the Banking Sector
The Training Advisory Council meets four times a year and constitutes an important interface between the IFB and the banks. Its members include representatives of training and human resource departments and trade unions in the sector.
Quality at IFB and the role of certification
The IFB has an official certification from the IQF – Institute for Quality in Training, which is the state body responsible for certifying quality at training institutions.
The IFB training aproach
The IFB is a "banking academy" allowing lifelong learning.
The IFB provides vocation training for candidates for banking jobs and new recruits and specialised ongoing professional training for bank employees.
Higher education awarding foundation and honours degrees is the responsibility of the ISGB, which also offers post-graduate and executive courses.
The IFB provides vocation training for candidates for banking jobs and new recruits and specialised ongoing professional training for bank employees.
Higher education awarding foundation and honours degrees is the responsibility of the ISGB, which also offers post-graduate and executive courses.
| Training of Candidates | Professional Training | Higher Education | Post-Higher Education |
| Apprenticeship Level 4 | Basic Intermediate Advanced | Foundation degrees Honours degrees Post-graduate course | Executive courses Conferences Seminars |
Arm of the Portuguese Association of Banks for vocational training and higher education specialists.
