Current issues of financial education in Russia

The article discusses the process of training financiers in Russian universities, as they are needed by all sectors of the economy. In Russia since Soviet times the training has been carried out within "Finance and Credit" profile. Kazan Finance and Economics Institute which is now the division of Kazan Federal University has been among the institutions involved in the financial training since 1931. In the early 90-ies of XX century "Finance and credit" profile became popular. The education within this profile was organized not only by fee-based private educational establishments, but also by some other non-core public institutes and universities. The growing number of universities involved in the training of financiers was associated with the growth of the financial sector, as well as with the desire of many universities to improve their financial condition by means of fee-based training, without taking into account the quality of financial education. The latter has long been ignored in the Russian Federation and only in 2012 the Ministry of Education began to detect inefficient institutions and universities. Kazan Federal University has organized training for the financial sector in the framework of undergraduate program for a Bachelor's degree as well as in the context of the Masters' program in the field of "Economics". Only in 2011 the educational standard for "Finance and Credit" has been adopted. The undergraduate program provides only a general idea of the financial component of the economy, modern financial institutions and markets. Graduate programs of a higher level give an opportunity to train more qualified staff for work in the financial sector. Given the fact that Russian higher educational establishments have long been training various professionals even within "Finance and Credit" profile, there is a problem of keeping single-disciplined programs even with the transition to a two-tier system of education (Bachelors' and Masters' degrees). In this article the author proves that training of financiers within Master's programs should be focused on the needs of the global financial system, address the problems of financial globalization, which are raising new demands to the quality of financial training. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.