University of Essex Launches MSc in Financial Technology

Essex Business School at the University of Essex is launching a new MSc in

Financial Technology (FinTech). The master course offers three routes – finance, economics and computer science – depending on the focus and career aspirations of the student.

Professor Franco Fiordelisi, Professor of Banking and Finance, University of Essex, said: “I realised that traditional masters in finance are not able to train students for the new challenges that technology is giving to the financial system. Fintech cannot be addressed from a single perspective, such as the economic, financial, engineering, and physical ones. Fintech requires a specific program merging these different perspectives. Fintech needs a specific program to be

well-addressed. Our programme combines the skills from the Department of Economics, Essex Business School and the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.”

He added, “Our students will have a wide perspective of the Fintech world and will also be trained in programming and coding in Python. Our programme is also flexible, so the student can choose modules on their interest to go deep into the area they will be most interested in, including investments, asset management, banking, risk management and monetary policy.”

According to Professor Fiordelisi, the pace and impact of technology are increasing in the financial sector. “Fintech is the new paradigm in finance,” he said. “Technology has initially affected how financial services are delivered, but now it has created new financial products, new currencies, a new form of financial exchanges and, finally, new financial players. Traditional financial players have to compete with these new players that, although smaller in the size of financial transactions compared to the traditional financial system, are vastly growing and are a serious threat to traditional players,” he said.

“Even regulators have to face the challenges driven by technological advances, leading to a new form of regulation/supervision and, likely, to a new form of traditional currency (such as the digital euro and the Indian digital rupee),” he added.

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