CFA Society of Poland is one of the youngest member societies of CFA Institute. It was established on April 14th, 2004 under the name of Polish Association of Investment Professionals (PAIP), by about 50 members.
 
Society was registered by CFA Institute as member society number 131 on December 1st, 2004. Following general policy of the other member societies, the name PAIP was changed by members to CFA Society of Poland on March, 17, 2005.
 
Currently we have 192 members, including 166 CFA charterholders (data as of end of October 2008). 37% of all members are persons at the age 21-31, 58% - persons at the age 32-41. This means dynamic growth in four years.
 
At present the total number of CFA charterholders in Poland amounts to about 200 persons. We observe growing interest in getting CFA designation in Poland in last few years. This is confirmed by about 30 new charterholders per year in last threww years and more than 500 persons registered as CFA Candidates.
 
The main activity of society is Annual Conference. Until now, four conferences were organized and taken place in Warsaw:
- On March 1st, 2005, under the title: “Asset allocation in pension funds” (with Chris Dreyer and Robert Clark giving guest talks),
- On November 30th, 2005 under the title: “Ethical standards” (with John Barras and Stewart Hamilton giving guest talks),
- On December 12th, 2006 under the title: "Equity research forum – PKN ORLEN" (with Mark Robinson and Gergely Varkonyi giving guest talks),
- On January 28th, 2008 under the title: "Tendencies in asset management – Poland and world".
During last conferences ceremony giving new charters is taking place as well as official announcement of Society Scholarships.
 
The other initiatives and activities of CFA Society of Poland were:
- the series of papers written by members of the society under the title: “Portfolio Performance Measurement, Attribution and Presentation” and published (in Polish) in journal “Rynek Terminowy” (Derivatives Market);
- translation of "Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct” into Polish;
- seminar with Larry Speidel (Ondine Asset Management, USA) under the title "What's emerging in emerging markets?).
 
It is worth to indicate that there is growing interest among Polish senior students and graduates to get CFA designation. There are several study groups preparing for CFA Exam. In response to this growing interest, one higher educational institution, Wroclaw University of Economics, launched in 2005 new programme, taught in English, Master Studies in Finance, in which many courses contain the material included in Common Body of Knowledge.
 
At present CFA Society of Poland has two area sponsors:

1. Ernst and Young, the area: Risk Management
Until now three workshops were organized, where Ernst and Young people gave talks:
- Derivative instruments, enterprise risk management and hedge accounting
- Risk in investment company
- Selected issues of bank risk management

2. Unicredit CAIB, the area: Equity Research
The first workshop was held under the title: Equity Research – methods and standards in analytical reports.