Master of Science in Financial Technology and Computing

Structure and contents

The Master of Science in Financial Technology and Computing is offered jointly by the Faculty of Informatics and by the Faculty of Economics of the Università della Svizzera italiana. This unique cross-discipline programme combines USI's world-leading expertise in Finance and Informatics and offers exciting career prospects that range from fintech startups to banks and insurers to hedge funds.

This Master offers a highly challenging programme that delivers key skills in a novel interdisciplinary domain. It has been designed to provide students with the necessary tools and skills for understanding fundamental problems in finance while, at the same time, learn about the advanced information technology that is needed to drive the next-generation financial services.

A two-track structure ensures that the level of Computer Science courses is commensurate with each student's background: students with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and related disciplines take the “Advanced Informatics” track of the program, featuring advanced informatics classes such as Distributed Systems, High-Performance Computing, and Machine Learning; students with no formal Computer Science degree instead enrol in the “Core Informatics” track, which features a set of intensive foundational classes, such as “Fundamentals of Informatics”, “Databases" and “Introduction to Programming”.

In the first year, all students jointly take advanced courses in Finance and Financial Technology, such as “Blockchains and Digital Currencies” or “Data Analytics for Finance”, before being able to individually diversify their programme along with a large set of electives from both Finance and Informatics in year two, according to personal interests and abilities. Finally, the programme features a Master’s thesis that can then be done either within the context of a university research group or in collaboration with industry embedded in our Fintech Laboratory.

Teaching

Top-level faculty of international renown teach innovative courses, with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation and in collaboration with prestigious institutions at local and international level. Professors are pursuing research on a variety of topics and are active participants in Swiss and international research projects and networks. Visiting professors from renowned universities complement the top-quality teaching.

Teaching methods at both the Faculty of Informatics and the Faculty of Economics stress an interactive approach or dialogue with the students. Further, as most tasks in organisations become increasingly interdisciplinary it is also important to be able to work across traditional areas, which is a skill that is actively encouraged within the programme. This is reflected in the variety of different teaching methods used including lectures, case studies, group work, games and fieldwork.

The Faculty and the students are an international group, with education and work experience from across the world. This increases learning and cultural exchanges, as students learn to work effectively with people from different cultures.

International Rankings

USI in the Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS), which are amongst the world's most popular and well-known global rankings - latest available data:

• QS World University Rankings 2023
  240th globally
  (out of 1500 universities considered)
  
• THE World University Rankings 2023
  Range 201-250
  (out of 1799 universities considered)
  
• THE World's Best Small Universities 2022
  15th worldwide
  among small universities.
  
• THE Young University Rankings 2022
  57th worldwide
  among ‘young’ universities (less than 50 years old)
  
• QS Top 50 Under 50 2021
  26th worldwide
  among ‘young’ universities (less than 50 years old)

U-Multirank 2022

With 16 "A" in the indicators taken into consideration, USI ranks 3rd in the ranking of Swiss universities (Country Report Switzerland).

Rankings by Subject Area

In addition to the global university rankings, USI has made significant progress in subject area rankings:

• THE Subject Rankings
  with important results in particular in Computer Science, Clinical and Health, Economics.
• Forschungsmonitoring
  with high scores in the rankings that measure the impact of research in Economics, especially when referring to the most prestigious academic journals of the field.

Master of Science in Financial Technology and Computing

Career Prospects

Targeting informatics bachelors and students with related degrees, the FinTeC master provides students with an existing background in informatics the skills necessary to enter the exciting new field of Finance Technology. A core of carefully selected finance and informatics courses provide a thorough understanding of the domain, while a broad offering of electives from both finance and informatics offer a personal learning path tailored to the needs and interests of each student.

The primary labor market for the graduates of the programme is to be found in small Fintech startups, medium to large companies in the finance sector (e.g., banks, insurers, hedge funds) as well as the public sector, both in Switzerland and abroad. Many existing financial companies struggle with keeping up with recent developments in finance technology and thus are in great need of informatics professionals who have a thorough understanding of finance. Potential job profiles range from system architect to system developer to service designer to financial consultant. With a FinTeC master, students will be able to help banks, trading companies, and insurers master this new reality, or, alternatively, be well positioned to challenge existing players with their own startup.

Employability Data

• Employed 100%
• Average Time to Job 2.2 months
  (56% within 3 months: 39% before graduation)