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Given the ever-increasing qualification demands the banking industry makes on its workforce, the trend towards upgrading skills will continue. As a response to this development, the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (which is the group of savings banks, Landesbanken, and associated companies) has founded its own state-approved University of Applied Sciences in summer 2003. The "Hochschule der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe - University of Applied Sciences - Bonn "(University of the Savings Banks Finance Group) offers performance-oriented employees of financial institutions the opportunity to obtain an internationally recognized academic degree in parallel to their vocational training or professional activity. The unique features of the University of the Savings Banks Finance Group are the solid foundation on international standards, practice-related new and quality-secured programs of study, the integration of university education and advanced professional training, and a successful studies-guaranteeing, web-based learning, tutorial, and student support concept via the Internet. One particularity of the study concept is the programs of studies specially tailored to the financial services area, which prepare the students in and for the present and future business segments of the banking industry in line with business policy and market requirements. The courses of study are thus a qualification offer for fields of activity in the financial services sector in which the complexity of professional skills calls for graduate recruitment. Brilliant career opportunities are opened up to the graduates, as the curricula of study envision a tight interlinking of theoretical and practical contents strongly related to everyday work activities. An internationally renowned accreditation agency has fully accredited the four undergraduate and two graduate degree programs. Against this background, the University of the Savings Banks Finance Group provides its students with professional skill-enhancing academic degrees recognized at the national and international level. The principal guidelines of the study concept are the orientation towards practical aspects, a strong focus on application to the students' careers that take studying from the conceptual to the practical, allowing students to integrate needed skills and competencies into daily work efforts immediately, quality assurance and a modern, trend-setting study concept. The overriding goal of the training- and career-accompanying study concept of the University of the Savings Banks Finance Group is to ensure the students' ability and capability to study and exercise their job tasks simultaneously. With this in mind, a distance education-based learning and counseling scheme has been developed, offering the students comprehensive organizational, technical, and expert support and guidance during their distance studies. Unlike the traditional distance studying of the text and study materials at home, the students are thoroughly instructed and tutored over the Hochschule's Internet-based learning platform and carefully prepared for their examinations. This platform serves as an information terminal and access portal to study materials and as a self-tuition medium and communication center for students and teaching staff alike. In addition to the high-quality distance study program marked by comprehensive counseling and advisory services for all students, the University of the Savings Banks Finance Group offers its students a wide range of events and activities with compulsory attendance in its decentralized distance study centers. The aim of these activities taking the form of lectures, exercise courses, seminar courses, and case study reviews are, on the one hand, to revise and deepen the contents of the subjects relevant to the exams as well as the specialized knowledge and method competences acquired in the course of the distance studies. On the other hand, they give the students additional room for questions and the practice-related application of the learned subjects. View full university