Continuing Education
Stephan Singh presents the ISFB Data Management Certificate: making data accessible to all banking professionals
October 6, 2025
Data management has become a key issue for financial institutions. With the ISFB Data Management certificate, the Institute offers accessible, pragmatic training to equip banking employees with the necessary foundations to understand, interpret and exploit data to support their decision-making. Stephan Singh, Program Director, explains the objectives, specific features and advantages of this program.
Stephan Singh, you are the Program Director of the ISFB Data Management Certificate. Can you tell us about this program and who it's aimed at?
The ISFB Data Management Certificate is a course designed for employees in the banking sector who have little or no knowledge of data.
The aim is to give them the fundamentals they need to understand the Data value chain, dialogue effectively with specialized teams, express their needs in terms of indicators, and know how to read and interpret them in order to make better decisions.
The program is aimed at a wide audience within banks, from support functions such as risk, compliance and project management, to operational and customer relations functions.
In your opinion, what makes this program so rich and high quality?
The richness of this certificate lies in its balance between theory and practice, always anchored in the banking context. The content remains deliberately accessible: an employee with no basic knowledge of data can follow the program and progress step by step, right through to practical exercises in data visualization and even a few notions of Python programming.
This approach ensures that everyone, whatever their background, can not only understand the concepts, but also put them into practice in a way that is directly relevant to their day-to-day professional life.
What do you see as the main challenges in this area, and how does this program provide concrete solutions?
One of today's major challenges is what is known as data literacy. Many professionals think they understand data analysis because on the surface it seems simple, when in reality it requires a foundation of knowledge to be interpreted correctly.
The challenge lies in the dialogue between the business teams, who express their needs, and the data teams, who produce the analyses. Without a common language and a minimum level of data maturity, a gap remains. The program aims to bridge this gap, by giving participants the keys to understanding the issues, identifying the limits of data, and working more effectively with their counterparts.
What is your role as Program Director?
My role is to guarantee the coherence and relevance of the certificate. This involves ensuring that the content is aligned with the current needs of financial institutions, participating in the selection of lecturers alongside the Continuing Education Manager, and also ensuring that the course remains accessible yet demanding.
I also act as a privileged point of contact for participants during the program, to support them and meet their expectations, and I contribute, along with my fellow members of the ISFB Scientific Committee, to ensuring that the ISFB's offering remains in step with the key skills expected in the French-speaking banking market.
