Financial Technology

The MSc in Financial Technology is designed to prepare you for a career in banking and finance with an emphasis in technologies and data management. In addition to the fundamental skills and knowledge of finance, you will be exposed to leading-edge concepts in artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain (cryptocurrencies), and big data analysis among other emerging topics.

The curriculum draws on GCU’s expertise in diverse areas of finance including regulation, risk analysis, modelling, and securities and investments within the framework of systems architecture, software development, and data management. The content and teaching strategies are designed to help you gain the essential skills and knowledge to prepare you to grow as a professional within the changing landscape of the banking and finance industry.

Advances in technology have brought about radical changes to financial operations, products and services. Key amongst them are activities such as the provision of credit (disintermediation through peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding), payment systems (blockchain technology and digital currencies), investments (algorithmic trading, online stockbroking services), and personal finance (robo-advisory services for individual investors). These innovations depend on secure and efficient communication systems and the processing of large amounts of data via machine learning algorithms.

The modules in this course will help you gain an understanding of the evolving nature of financial technologies: impact on financial rules and regulation, analysing and managing financial risk, current and emerging trends in different financial sectors as well as challenges and opportunities to the subject and practice of finance. On an equal basis, the course's modules focus on enhancing your skills and knowledge of software development, artificial intelligence, data visualisation and ethics, putting these into practice to solve real-world problems.

This course will enable you to:

• Critically apply concepts of machine learning, neural networks, data science algorithms, advanced exploratory statistics to solve financial problems with applications of computational intelligence.
• Evaluate the latest software development methodologies and apply the appropriate process to the information system needs of banking and financial institutions.
• Critically analyse information collection techniques and analysis methods and manipulate and develop tools and technologies designed for capturing, processing, storing, transferring, analysing, and visualising data for financial applications.
• Develop a workable knowledge base and skills in areas of current technological development in finance (such as blockchain, distributed ledger technology, cybersecurity, payment systems and so on) as applied to risk analysis and modelling, regulation, compliance, and investment analysis.

Graduate opportunities

Through its competitive strengths in the technologies sector, government support and entrepreneurial and innovative character, firms in the United Kingdom have gained 10% of the global market share in fintech, a sector which is worth more than £11bn a year to the UK. Approximately 76,000 people work in the sector with this number set to grow to more than 105,000 by 2030. Scotland is now home to over 100 fintech companies and the country has been voted the best European place to start a tech business.

Looking at the broader financial services (FS) workforce in Scotland also provides a steer in relation to aspects such as skills demand within this sector. In 2020, the most in-demand skills within the sector in were commonly digital-based including Java, software engineering, SQL and Python. Digital transformation was also identified within the FS sector as one of the key drivers for skills demand. Digital delivery of services within the sector is expected to result in a need to refocus/upskill sections of the workforce resulting in demand for critical families of skills such as data analytics, software development, business analytics and financial crime.

The government’s Kalifa Review of UK Fintech, commissioned by HM Treasury, published its recommendations on how to best support the growth and development of the UK’s fintech sector. One of the key recommendations from the report has potential direct implications on a new master’s course in this field: "Build a pipeline of fintech talent by supporting fintech scaleups to offer embedded work placements to further education and higher education students and Kickstarters" and  "...facilitate stronger connections with universities and the fintech ecosystem" in order to enhance fintech's appeal as a graduate destination and deepen relations between industry and academia.

More broadly, in 2019 the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) published research with the key recommendation to "Retrain and upskill adults to meet the needs of UK fintech by ensuring access to short courses from high-quality education providers at low cost."

In terms of specific skills, some of those proposed as being included in the MSc Financial Technology’ at GCU show clear evidence of both current and future demand across the UK generally, with data science and machine learning both forecast to see "explosive" growth through to 2023.

In October 2020 the World Economic Forum published research on the future of jobs globally to 2025. FS job roles expected to see an increase in demand over the 2020–2025 period are most commonly digital-based, while those most likely to become increasingly redundant are administrative and clerical roles. Fintech engineers are also in the top 10 emerging roles.