National Student Banking Competition - December 2016

In the period 2-3 December 2016 in the town of Svishtov was held the National Student Banking Competition "My first business loan", organized by the First Bulgarian Financial Department "Finance and Credit" at the Academy of Economics "Dimitar A. Tsenov" - Svishtov.

The specialty finance embodies the spirit and will of the Donor to teach "… commercial sciences; financial sciences; commercial law; banking; insurance sciences; etc." at the Higher Commercial School in Svishtov.

The interest in the race was huge. 230 students from grades 10-12 from all over the country competed. All participants were divided into 46 teams. We worked on an interesting case, the purpose of which was to provoke us to show our managerial skills and financial and economic training, developing a new and unique business idea for the company we manage. Our teams were placed on an equal footing with regard to the outgoing financial data, on the basis of which to develop an investment project proposal for access to financing from the Commercial Bank. In the process of developing the idea, in order to gain the trust of the credit institution, we were all assisted by mentors - students and PhD students from the Department of Finance. After the formation of the business idea, we received valuable advice from credit consultants, representatives of partner banks and at the end we presented our project ideas, proposals and credit justifications to a jury. We were all greeted by Professor Dr. Andrey Zahariev, head of the department and received certificates that guarantee us admission as a first wish in the specialty "Finance" of the Academy of Economics.

I, together with my classmates, took part in a seminar on "Investment gold and trade in gold derivatives". We all touched a real gold bar (50 grams of Swiss gold), received information from a representative of Invest Bank about the different types of coins in which free money can be invested and valuable practical advice for investing in gold.

The competition and the seminar were held on the eve of the Bankers' Day and with the kind assistance of representatives of five leading banks: DSK, UBB, Unicredit, Municipal Bank and Raiffeisen Bank. The results - a lot of new knowledge in the field of finance and banking, as well as exciting acquaintances!