Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are being used in the financial services industry worldwide. Financial institutions and Financial Technologies (FinTech) start-ups are using AI and machine learning methods to assess credit quality, to price and market insurance contracts, and to automate client interaction. Some of these companies are optimising scarce capital with AI and machine learning techniques, as well as back-testing models and analysing the market impact of trading large positions. Hedge funds, broker-dealers, and other firms are using AI and machine learning to find signals for higher (and uncorrelated) returns and optimise trading execution. These companies are using these technologies for regulatory compliance, surveillance, data quality assessment, and fraud detection.

After completing the course, you will have a basic understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Financial Technologies (FinTech) and Blockchain (BC) from the core concepts to the main technologies. You will also learn how these technologies are being applied to finance industry from asset management to insurance, and from customer service to regulatory and compliance areas. Ethics and risks relevant to AI and machine learning will be explored.

Fixed income securities include bonds that promise a fixed income stream and by extension all securities whose valuation and hedging are related to interest rates. This course is focused on the concepts and tools that are useful to managers who want to use these securities. Topics include the term structure of interest rates and forward rates; bond pricing, interest rate and reinvestment risks; risk and hedging in bond portfolio management; corporate bonds, emerging market bonds, and default risks; interest rate derivatives.

(Pre-requisite: FINA6010 Money and Capital Markets)

Theories will stay on paper forever if they are not applied in practice. To become a successful business leader in the future, you need to master the skills of effective communication and be able to communicate with impact. This course will help you acquire the necessary skills of a great communicator and break your psychological barrier when you present in front of audience(s).

To be confirmed.

(Students who have completed MKTG6015W Salesmanship and Sales Management in the past is not allowed to take MKTG6032W Current Topics in Marketing: The Art of Selling.)

This offering provides an overview and analysis of financial decision-making within the corporate setting. Various facets of financial management are tackled from both theoretical and applied perspectives. Key topic areas include capital budgeting, the concept of risk and expected returns, valuation of stocks and bonds, capital structure theory and its applications, cost of capital, corporate dividend policy, working capital management and equity fund-raising methods.

This course will look beyond the theories of finance and enable students to understand how the business environment of financial firms is changing due to that oft-used and also oft-misunderstood word – fintech. The most recent figures from the OECD suggest the financial industry in developed economies makes up 20% of GDP, and work from the McKinsey Global Institute pegs its global revenue at US$11 trillion. Yet this same industry is still widely seen as being in great turmoil, with large financial institutions retreating from their historical product offerings, significant cuts in the workforce, and great attention being paid to the purported disruption of ‘fintech’ offerings.

While the traditional firms face these drawbacks, a youthful and talented class of entrepreneurs are launching their fintech competitors. Using technologies ranging from Blockchain to A.I., and with disruptive strategies looking to remake the business models, these firms are in the hunt for that elusive animal – the unicorn firm, a startup valued at US$1 billion.

The students of this course will look at the history of the finance industry, the challenges it faces and the historical drivers that brought it to this point, and finally look across a number of the sub-industries of finance – traditional banking, asset management, broking, insurance products, etc – to determine possible new directions and strategies for fintech startups.

(Pre-requisite: FINA5010 Financial Management)

This course targets to train up students to derive and develop financial and managerial insights from technology, design innovative solutions to meet financial service needs, optimize financial decisions in complex business environment, and understand and analyze the social, economic, security, and legal impacts from their solutions.

(Pre-requisite: FINA5010 Financial Management)

The purpose of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction to fundamental analysis of securities. The materials covered will help students to become familiar with a variety of financial instruments traded in the equity and fixed-income markets, to understand the theoretical foundation for, and practical implementation of, widely used asset pricing theories, and to develop essential skills needed to succeed as an investment professional.

The Leadership Development course will create the opportunity for students to reflect on two key areas of leadership; managing themselves (self awareness and understanding) and managing relationships (the impact they have on others). These two aspects involve a high level of self-awareness, the willingness to risk new behavior and the capacity to be flexible and make changes as the environment changes.

This course provides students with a basic understanding of the state of the global economy and macroeconomic policy. Topics include national income accounting, unemployment, inflation, monetary and fiscal policies, and international economic interactions. Applications of economic theories to current macroeconomic phenomena will be emphasized.