Middle East candidates are not very good at passing the CFA

The Chartered Financial Analyst qualification has been gaining traction in the Middle East in recent years, but those in the region attempting to pass the notoriously difficult exams still lag behind the rest of the world.

A record 104,111 people took the CFA exams in June 2009, with 45% of those managing to pass. It's easy to assume that the qualification - assessed through a gruelling series of three six-hour exams - is getting easier.

But although this is up from the 35% managing to get through the level 1 exam in 2008, the CFA says this figure is distinctly worse than the long-term average pass rate.

However, just 33% of the 5,480 people taking the CFA exams in the Middle East and Africa managed to get through. Europe's 50% pass rate was the highest globally.

A spokesperson for the CFA Institute tells us that historically the Middle East has a lower pass rate than most locations, and this year's average is an improvement on the 27% achieved in 2008.

"In terms of a global qualification, the CFA is still relatively new, and the fact that the exams are in the English language could be a factor in the Middle East," they said.

Nonetheless, the fact that there are fewer CFA charterholders in the Middle East should, in theory, make the qualification stand out more on your CV.

Mohammed Al-Qatari, head of investments at Saad Group in Saudi Arabia and himself a CFA, certainly thinks so. He says it's increasingly in demand: "Not only in asset management but also in other investment and commercial banking activities."