He was not studying for an exam. Instead, with two schoolmates, he created a proposal for investing $10,000 in stocks and unit trusts.

The hard work of the three aspiring fund managers paid off on Saturday, when they won a competition offering a $1,000 cash prize and an opportunity to manage a virtual portfolio worth $1 million. After a year, part of the returns from this portfolio will be translated into real money and donated to charity.

The 'Next Fund Manager' competition, organised by the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Investment Interactive Club and sponsored by online funds distributor fundsupermart.com, gives NTU students like Mr Mui a chance to get exposure to investing.

'Before this competition, I had little idea what investing was about. But now, I've had hands-on experience in picking stocks,' said Mr Mui.

Fundsupermart.com will donate 10 per cent of the net virtual profits from the student-managed fund - or up to $10,000 - to the Straits Times Pocket Money fund.

This novel activity is just one of at least eight business- and finance-related competitions organised for tertiary and polytechnic students over the last two years.

Financial institutions like fundsupermart.com, OCBC Bank, Citibank and Saxo Capital Markets are behind contests and events like these - often with a charity element - to financially educate young people, promote their brand name and even recruit talent.

And they have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to sponsor such events.

They also often collaborate with the investment clubs of the three local universities - National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University and NTU.

OCBC Securities, for instance, forked out over $90,000 in 2006 to organise an investment summit and hold a Securities Online Stock Challenge where students traded with virtual money using real-time prices.

Citibank has also collaborated with university clubs to organise events like banking seminars and a business case challenge where teams of students tackled the knotty question of how to grow market share in a saturated credit card market.

Indeed, with the finance sector becoming the top pick of fresh graduates in Singapore, these competitions are growing in popularity among students.

More than 2,500 tertiary level and junior college students participated in a recent stock challenge - far exceeding the initial target of 1,500 participants.

Besides stocks, other instruments like foreign exchange are also striking the right note with students.

In March last year, members of the business clubs of five polytechnics in Singapore joined an Amazing Race-style 'Go for Gold' challenge organised by Saxo Capital Markets.

Participants learnt forex basics during a pre-race training session using Saxo's online trading platform.

They then dashed around the Central Business District on tri-

shaws collecting signatures from the public on their T-shirts to raise money for the Children's Cancer Foundation.