Given a choice between the mentioned colleges, the best institution for Finance will surely be TAPMI School of Business for various reasons.

Let us first have a look at some statistics about all the three colleges.

TAPMI:

• Laboratories: One of the most exclusive reasons for choosing TAPMI is a well-equipped Finance Lab which helps students gain hands-on experience and understand core financial concepts through practical studies as opposed to only theory. The lab is equipped with 16 Bloomberg terminals and 7 Thomson Reuters terminals.

• Curriculum: The course curriculum for PGDM BKFS at the institute is CFA C-BOK (certified body of knowledge) and FRM (Financial Risk Management) certified and meets the latest global industry standards.

• Faculty: The program in Banking and Finance is backed by experienced faculty members who have years of experience in academics and industry.

• Accreditation: It is one of the few management institutions in the country to have a two-tier global accreditation, i.e AMBA, and AACSB.

• Extra-Curricular: The institute organizes multiple events, workshops, and industry visits to provide students with a well-rounded experience. Student managed investment funds and multiple club activities are all part of the module in finance.

IMT-G:

• It offers a PGDM program in Finance that has an industrial and financial backing overlooking a high number of companies for recruitments but fails to provide a high placement rate considering an exceptionally high batch size, which keeps the majority of the students from getting a full-time job.

• It observes the highest placements in the marketing department and sees very few core companies for finance, with corporate finance and banking jobs marking the minority. Apart from the brand name of IMT, it is not considered to be the best institute for a program in Finance.

KJ Somaiya:

The institute offers PGDM programs in Finance which are well-structured but fail to impress in terms of management and placements. While the fee structure of the program is lower compared to the other institutes, it observes many good companies as part of their recruitment drive due to the location, but still has an overall low placement rate within the Finance sector.

Given the three options, the best institute for a program in Finance would definitely be TAPMI School of Business for the well-structured curriculum, good placement opportunities, and facilities provided.

The difference between PGDM and PGDM-BKFS is that PGDM is the general MBA program and the course curriculum comprises all fundamental and cross-sectional areas of management while the course curriculum of PGDM-BKFS is tailor-made for Finance. In the first year for PGDM students are required to study various management-related subjects like Marketing, Finance, HR, and Operation. However, the BKFS course only includes Finance related topics.

TAPMI offers good infrastructure for BKFS. The institute has the largest state-of-arts finance lab in the country with 16 Bloomberg terminals. TAPMI also offers a unique Student Managed Investment Course (SMIC) for the finance stream in which BKFS students work in teams and each team has a mentor from industry currently working in the BFSI Sector. Also, unlike the traditional internship that PGDM students go through the BFS cohort had a two-month study tour in Bombay Stock Exchange where the students had their live projects.

Given below is a comparison between the two courses.

Almost all of the colleges listed here are in the top 20 list of MBA colleges in India for Finance. Among the new IIMs, the ones good for Finance are IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak, IIM Raipur, IIM Udaipur, and IIM Kashipur. 

Admission Criteria

Given below are the admission criteria for the institutes mentioned in the question.

• IIMs take admission based on the performance of the students in CAT/GMAT. For final selection into the program, IIMs conduct Written Ability Tests (WAT), Group Discussion (GD), and Personal Interviews (PI).
• XIMB accepts admission through CAT/GMAT/XAT score +  WAT + PI + GD.
• IMT G takes admission through CAT/XAT/GMAT/CMAT score + Group Exercise (GE) + Personal Interview (PI).
• IIT M selects students for admission based on their performance in CAT/GMAT + WAT + PI.
• IMI Delhi accepts CAT/GMAT/ATMA/CMAT/XAT score and students are selected based on their performance in Extempore, Essay Writing, and Personal Interview.
• TAPMI selects students based on their CAT/GMAT/XAT scores which is followed by WAT, PI, and GD. 

The table below draws a comparison of the MBA program offered by the institutes.

Top recruiters at these institutes include Tata Steel, Cognizant, Capgemini, Accenture, Apollo Munich, Godrej, Emami, Nestle, Titan, Maruti Suzuki, PCBL, HDFC Bank, Mu Sigma, Larsen & Toubro, GMR, Tata Steel, Godrej & Boyce, and Vedanta and many more. 

All of the mentioned institutes are good for MBA in Finance. However, based on facilities provided, course curriculum, and placements the order of preference should be IIM Shillong, new IIMs, XIMB, IMT-G, IMI-D, IIT-M, TAPMI.

Among all these institutes, TAPMI, Manipal and KJ Somaiya are the better choices for pursuing PGDM in Finance.

TAPMI offers CFA C-BOK and FRM certified curriculum and has a finance lab powered by 16 Bloomberg and 7 Reuters terminals. Students also get training with SBI- Staff Training College, Hyderabad, and BSE Training Institute, BSE Mumbai to acquire industry-relevant skills. BFSI was among the top sectors offering placement offers in the 2020 placement drive at the institute. 28% of students got recruited in the BFSI sector.

KJ Somaiya Institute of Management has a location-wise benefit as the institute is situated in Mumbai- the financial hub of the nation. It attracts many reputed companies from the finance domain for placement. According to last year’s placement highlights, 31% of students were recruited in Banking and Insurance Services and 16% of students got offers in Financial Services.

The BIM Trichy placement batch-profile of 2020 shows the maximum number of students (30) opted for the Finance sector.

The table below shows the placement highlights at the three institutions for the academic year of 2020.

KJ Somaiya, Great Lakes, GIM, and TAPMI all of these are highly proclaimed institutes in India for management studies. Each of these institutes is good in different domains of management studies. KJ Somaiya and GIM are better for Finance. Whereas, GIM is reputed for Marketing.

In general, the order of preference should be as given below.

1. KJ Somaiya
2. TAPMI
3. GIM
4. Great Lakes

Given below is a comparison between the institutes.