Four top financial services graduates, one from each university in Glasgow, have been awarded £1,000 each by the partners behind Glasgow’s International Financial Services District (IFSD) for achieving top marks in their final exams.

The new awards programme was established by the IFSD Partnership to recognise the  wealth of talent graduating from Glasgow’s four universities, prepared for careers in  financial services.

Kerrie McKnight, 22, from Falkirk achieved a first in her BA (Hons) Finance degree from the University of Strathclyde and is looking forward to starting with PricewaterhouseCoopers in August.

Yu-Hao Chen, 30, took a year out from his job at Deloitte & Touche in Taiwan to achieve a grade A Masters in International Accounting and International Financial Accounting at the University of Glasgow.  

Gavin Park, 23, from Ayr achieved a first class BA (Hons) Finance, Investment and Risk degree from Glasgow Caledonian University.

And, Afsheen Khalid, 26, from the south side of Glasgow achieved a grade A in MSc International Financial Management from the University of the West of Scotland.

All four students were nominated by their individual universities as ‘outstanding achievers’ from courses designed for careers in financial services.

Jim Watson, director of financial services, Scottish Enterprise who presented the awards to the students on behalf of Glasgow’s IFSD said, “These awards recognise the great work being done by the universities in Glasgow and the relationships they have with the financial services sector to ensure a steady pipeline of well qualified graduates to work in the industry. And, the awards also recognise the breadth and depth of talent graduating from these universities which is, we believe, very reassuring for existing financial services companies in the city and prospective inward investors.”

Since its launch in 2001, the IFSD has been developed by a partnership of the public and private sectors led by Scottish Enterprise and Glasgow City Council. Over
£1 billion has so far been invested to transform the previously run down area of the city centre.  The District has attracted over 15,000 financial sector jobs from some of the biggest names in global finance including Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Barclays Wealth, BNP Paribas, HSBC, esure, Direct Line, Tesco Bank and Odyssey Financial Technologies.