The Brunel Banking and Finance MSc is designed to give graduates the knowledge and advanced skills needed for careers in the complex and rapidly changing banking and financial services industry.

Your studies will cover key subjects including financial economics, the economics of banking, international financial markets and quantitative methodology, as well as financial regulation at national and international levels and matters arising in private banking.

Crucially, you’ll develop your problem-solving skills and ability to critically evaluate and deliver midterm and long-term strategic solutions.

Throughout the course you’ll have access to a variety of professional databases used in business and finance including Datastream, Bloomberg, Fitch, Osiris, Reuters 3000 Xtra and Thomson One Banker.

Entry Requirements

Are you eligible to apply?

Course Content

Coursework for your banking and finance postgraduate degree consists of compulsory and optional modules, and a dissertation on a relevant topic of your choice.

Full-time students should complete four modules per term, excluding the dissertation.

Teaching and Learning

Our staff have national and international reputations for their research, publications and applied work. This means that your education will be innovative, inspiring and cover the most up-to-date industry knowledge.

Your course will consist of lectures, seminars, directed independent study, workshops and oral presentations. You’ll also have access to industry-standard data and software programmes used in research methods.

Banking

This module aims to explore the nature of banking as well as links between financial intermediaries, risks and the broader economy. The module seeks to conceptualise the economic function of banks and also show how banks are subject to important risks, which necessitate both a complex system of regulation and sophisticated risk management by the bank itself.

Bank Regulation and Macro Prudential Policy

This module aims to develop a sound understanding of the nature of the market failures in banking that that require regulatory responses, and the potential problems with regulation, to develop sound knowledge of the role of bank regulation in ensuring financial stability in the international economy, especially in periods of crisis, and to develop a framework for understanding the nature and use of the wide range of other tools used in macro-prudential regulation.

International Finance

While a large part of Economics and Finance, in theory and practice, can be treated as a mainly domestic exercise, there exists an increasing number of areas that apply to a multi-country setting. This module aims to equip students with knowledge necessary to work in an international, multi-currency professional environment, and to provide students with knowledge on whose basis future academic research and doctoral studies in the area of international finance can be pursued.

Global Financial Markets

The aim of this module is to provide an advanced theory of financial markets and banking with global and regulatory aspects. This module covers financial markets (e.g., bond markets, stock markets, derivative markets, foreign exchange markets) in more depth and relates with international financial system, regulation (e.g., Basel I, II, III, regulatory capital, economic capital), financial crisis, and banking (e.g., central banks, commercial banks, investment banks).

Quantitative Methods for Finance and Economics

The aim of this module is to enable students to conduct their own empirical investigations of a range of financial and accounting relationships, to impart the knowledge necessary to understand empirical analysis in academic related journals, and to provide a basic foundation in the theory and practice of econometric modelling as applied in finance and economics.

Banking and Finance Workshop

This module will provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate a sound knowledge of the operation of financial institutions and their regulators and the theory underpinning macro prudential policy. It will also identify how theory and applications are linked in practice and be able to relate this to the techniques used to model financial institutions and their regulators decisions.

Dissertation

The objective of the dissertation is to bring to bear the techniques and perspectives covered in the taught part of the course upon a specific issue of interest. The dissertation should provide an independent and critical appraisal of an issue, normally (although not always) involving an empirical analysis of the topic being investigated.

Careers

With the knowledge and expertise you'll gain on the course, you'll be well equipped to progress into academic careers and many of our graduates now hold teaching positions in institutions like the Australian Business School, EDHEC Business School in Nice, Glasgow University and Oslo Business School.

Others have used the skills and experiences gained to pursue a career within financial institutions and now hold senior positions in prestigious organisations like Standard Life in the UK, Bank of Cyprus, HBSC Istanbul and TD Bank Financial Group in Canada.