What are the First Finance Executive Online Certificates?
Executive Online Certificates - EOCs - are online tutored certificate programs delivered by First Education Online with top-tier partner schools, each ending in a proctored final exam delivered through Pearson VUE. The flagship is the ICCF@HEC Paris, the International Certificate in Corporate Finance, which the vendor says has passed over 10,500 participants since the format launched and is led by HEC Paris professor Pascal Quiry, co-author of the Vernimmen corporate-finance reference.
The family spans corporate finance, strategy, markets, and management: the vendor's own pages pair the certificates with HEC Paris, ESCP, Universite Paris Dauphine-PSL, CentraleSupelec, ESSEC, and Mines Paris-PSL, while Pearson's live FIRSTFINANCE flow lists the bookable exam series for the HEC Paris, Columbia Business School, and Wharton Online certificates. First Education Online is the exclusive distributor of the EOC format, which the First Finance Group pioneered in 2014.
Who is behind the certificates?
First Finance Group, created in 1996, reports more than 150,000 people trained and over 40,000 executives certified in finance, management, and sustainable transition across more than 50 countries. The group has delivered 25,000 regulatory certifications itself, with another 6,000 issued by partner schools, and it describes a pioneer timeline: e-learning in 1999, MOOCs in 2013, Executive Online Certificates in 2014, hybrid programs in 2020.
FIRST FINANCE INSTITUTE - the name on Pearson's program page - is the certification and online learning division of the group, providing foundational and advanced certifications across Capital Markets and Corporate Finance, endorsed, in Pearson's words, by renowned executives and financial institutions. On the training side the vendor reports 16,000 alumni, a 90 percent satisfaction rate, a 4.9/5 Google Reviews score, and an NPS of 92/100 among corporate clients - vendor-reported figures, labeled as such - plus QUALIOPI certification and OPQF qualification.
Which certificates map to Pearson's live exam inventory?
Pearson's live FIRSTFINANCE flow, verified 2026-10-20, lists seven Executive Online Certificate series: ICCF @ HEC Paris (id 28597), ICCF AT COLUMBIA (id 37263), ICCF2 AT HEC PARIS (id 52732 - the M&A and financing-engineering sequel), STRATEGY_AT_HEC_PARIS_FR (id 33803), ACCF_AT_HEC (id 37678), M&A @ Columbia Business School (id 40132), and ASSET MANAGEMENT @ WHARTON ONLINE (id 38075). The vendor's group page confirms the ICCF lineage across HEC Paris, Columbia Business School, and Instituto de Empresa in French, English, and Chinese.
A separate Others group holds six more entries: the Certificate in Capital Market Foundations and the Certificate in Capital Market Operations, each in French and English (ids 19297, 19298, 24167, 24168), and the standalone International Certificate in Corporate Finance exam in Chinese (id 28611) and English (id 27081). The vendor's public site is French-first and does not publish English detail pages for every certificate - so the Pearson listing and the vendor's program detail are kept as separate layers here, and acronyms the vendor has not expanded in English are quoted exactly as listed.
How does the training-plus-exam model work?
Each EOC follows the same shape, documented on the vendor's ICCF page: three six-week courses of weekly videos, application exercises, quizzes, and live sessions, with a synthesis case study closing each course - and then the proctored final exam in the Pearson VUE environment. The vendor's worked example is the ICCF: the final is a two-hour, 120-question multiple-choice paper sat within two months of the third course, the certificate needs a 500/800 exam minimum plus a 10/20 average on each case study, and the final grade weights case studies 30 percent against the exam's 70.
The certificate that posts is co-delivered by the partner school and First Education Online and carries a unique, unfalsifiable digital identification key for employers to verify. The model is deliberately compatible with a working week - the vendor quotes three to five hours of study per week - and there is no selection process: enrollment is open, and the rigor is in the assessment, not the admissions.
Where do the final exams happen?
Through Pearson VUE, both ways. Pearson's official OnVUE view-all catalog lists FIRST FINANCE INSTITUTE among the programs that allow testing from home, the dedicated FIRST FINANCE OnVUE page publishes the at-home rules including a digital-whiteboard allowance, and the live flow presented both delivery models for the ICCF @ HEC Paris sitting (id 28597) on 2026-10-19. The vendor's program copy describes center sittings across more than 150 countries - the two layers agree that Pearson VUE is the channel, at a center or online.
The exam environment is standardized across the program: an on-screen calculator modeled after the TI-30XS, a Pearson account for scheduling, and the OnVUE minimums for home sittings - one display, no headphones, the accepted-ID list matched to the booking name, and a system test before exam day. The delivery map on this site keeps the full evidence trail with dates.
The short version
The Executive Online Certificates are the First Finance Group's online certificate family - 1996 roots, the EOC format since 2014, exclusive distribution through First Education Online - pairing partner-school courses with a proctored Pearson VUE final. Thirteen unique exam series are publicly listed in Pearson's live FIRSTFINANCE flow, the program is officially listed for home testing, and the ICCF flagship's online delivery was verified per exam on 2026-10-19.
If the certificate you need gates on the proctored final, Exam Assist handles that sitting end to end - the Pearson account, the delivery choice, the system checks, and the exam itself - and the service fee is due only after the agreed result posts. Start with the ICCF @ HEC Paris service page or the delivery map.