MSc (Finance)

This course is for you if you have an interest in financial markets, institutions and financial decision making. You want a career in the financial services sector or in academia. You want to be taught and supervised by leading academics.

You will explore how company managers and investors make financial decisions, how they manage their risk and how financial markets function. Your background may not necessarily be in finance, so this is a great opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge and practical understanding of financial markets and financial decision making.

Finance Highlights:

• Professional Accreditations
• The programme has been accepted into the CFA Institute University Recognition Program showing that the programme aligns with the Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK) - the core knowledge, skills, and abilities that are generally accepted and applied by investment professionals throughout the world.
• Career Development
• Students may wish to join the Student Managed Fund, which seeks to achieve positive returns through superior stock selection using quantitative and qualitative fundamental analysis. This is a real money student managed investment fund. The goal is to achieve consistent long term positive returns by optimally managing downside risk. The Fund seeks to mitigate risk through sufficient diversification and through a series of strict rules and procedures.
• World Class Facilities
• Certain classes are held in the FinTrU Trading Room. Students have access to Bloomberg software, a market leader in financial news, data and analytics, which is used by many financial institutions. The Trading Room allows for an interactive and exciting learning environment which brings textbook theory to life.
• Queen’s Business School (QBS) has recently undergone an innovative expansion that establishes a benchmark of global excellence for one of the top business schools in the UK and Ireland. A stunning new 6,000 square metre building, adjacent to the listed red-brick Riddel Hall has been designed with the latest digital infrastructure for media lecture capture, TED Talk provision and collaborative breakout sessions.
• Fostering an enhanced social and educational experience the new state-of-the-art QBS venue boasts a 250-seat tiered educational space; 120-seat Harvard style lecture theatre; 150-seat computer laboratory; breakout study spaces; FinTrU Trading Room; a café, and a Business Engagement and Employability Hub.
• Internationally Renowned Experts
• Students have the opportunity to hear from industry professionals who regularly deliver guest lectures. Students have the opportunity to network afterwards.
• Student Experience
• Students will use and have access to software such as Stata, Excel, Matlab, RStudio, Oxyor and databases such as Thomson One Banker, DataStream, S&P Global Market Intelligence and Bloomberg.

Course Structure:

The MSc Finance is a full-time postgraduate programme aimed primarily at students with undergraduate degrees from the disciplines of finance, maths, statistics, or any other programme with a high quantitative content.

This programme offers a wide range of in-depth modules that provide students with core knowledge of financial markets, financial instruments, and financial decision making both from an institutional as well as corporate perspective. 

Eight taught modules aim to equip students with the necessary skillset to foster responsible decision making and to promote sustainable economic growth. These modules align with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and map directly to a selection of these goals.

• Semester 1
• Asset Pricing - FIN7026
• This module offers an introduction to the field of financial economics and provides an understanding of the development of advanced pricing theory. The module starts by examining rational investor behaviour; how investors allocate resources both in certain and uncertain environments, building towards an understanding of how prices are rationally determined in asset markets. Apparent violations of rational behaviour and pricing are then examined to understand better how traders and markets function. Students will also explore portfolio allocation and examine a range of anomalies including the equity premium puzzle. The course concludes with an examination of the efficient market hypothesis and throughout, we shall critique key financial models and economic theory.
• Corporate Finance - FIN9005
• The purpose of this course is to analyse how corporations make major financial decisions. The theory of corporate behaviour is discussed and the relevance of each theoretical model is examined by an empirical analysis of actual corporate decision making. The aims of this module are to familiarise students with the issues of confronting corporations when making investments and financing decisions and to develop the ability of students to obtain corporate information from the Bloomberg database.
• Market Microstructure - FIN7027
• The first part of this module provides a detailed analysis of the contemporary structure of global finance including key market participants and markets, focusing on fixed income and foreign exchange markets. We will then explore the economic issues and structures underlying trading on these markets. The aim of this module is to ensure that students understand the structure, dynamics and trading mechanisms of global financial markets, as well as appreciate the role of key institutions involved in these markets.
• Financial Data Analytics - FIN9008
• The purpose of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction to econometric techniques used in finance. It contains a treatment of classical regression and an introduction to time series techniques. There will be an emphasis on applied work using econometric packages. The course is designed to give students both theoretical and practical experience of statistical and econometric techniques. A wide range of topics is typically covered including the basic regression model, which includes a discussion of the classical violations of this model and methods for their correction. Students will learn a computer statistical software package (R).
• Semester 2
• Derivatives - FIN9007
• The aim of this course is to develop in students a theoretical and practical knowledge of derivative instruments. The learning outcomes include understanding the mechanisms of futures and forward markets, pricing futures and forward instruments, constructing hedges using futures, and understanding the mechanisms of option markets. Additionally, the concepts of stochastic processes and its applications in financial modelling is addressed.
• International Finance - FIN9004
• The main goal of this course is to understand the complexities involved in conducting finance across more than one country. It aims to provide students with both practical skills for working in this area and a broader understanding of the role of finance within the international economy. The majority of the course will involve the description of key analytical concepts and theories involved in international finance. These theories are then used to help understand the international elements of important economic and financial phenomena.
• Advanced Financial Data Analytics - FIN7028
• Statistics is the science of uncertainty and variation. Econometrics is the application of statistics to economic and finance problems. The aim of this course is to teach students to apply time series financial econometrics techniques sensibly in the context of real-world empirical problems. Use R statistical programming software and RStudio, students will be taught statistical techniques which underpin quantitative investigation in the finance.
• Money and Banking - FIN9003
• This module examines the theory of money and banking. The course considers the main banking and monetary institutions and monetary policy. The overall aim is to provide students with an understanding of monetary and banking institutions and promote a good appreciation of the economic functions and workings of financial those institutions.
• Semester 3
• Dissertation
• The aim of the dissertation is to provide students with the skills needed for conducting theoretical and/or empirical research in finance.
• OR
• Applied Research Project