How to apply

Overview

The details

Course: Banking and Finance

Start date: October 2021

Study mode: Full-time

Duration: 1 year

Location: Colchester Campus

Based in: Essex Business School

What is the role of banks in society today? How do they create value for their shareholders? And why do they need such extensive regulation?

Our MSc Banking and Finance builds on your existing knowledge of finance, economics or business to prepare you for a challenging and rewarding career in the banking sector.

You’ll explore bank efficiency, bank failures and crises, regulatory frameworks and risk. You’ll investigate the challenges of modern banking and understand how innovation in financial technology has disrupted the sector.

You develop a detailed understanding of areas including:

portfolio management
modern banking methods
bank strategy and risk
regulation and the internationalisation process

This course is taught at Essex Business School. Our expert team are at the forefront of financial debate and have presented their research at the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve. By embedding the latest academic and industry thinking into our teaching, you experience an education that’s at the forefront of the issues impacting today’s banking and finance sectors.

Essex has one of the largest groups of finance academics in the UK, providing a wide range of courses in banking, finance, investment, risk management and financial econometrics. This means you’ll also be able to choose from a huge range of optional modules to tailor your course to your interests and aspirations.

Our aim is to give you the best foundation for a career in banking or elsewhere in the finance sector. We want to help you understand the theory and put it into practice.

You’ll learn to use our Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab, which gives you access to the data and analytical tools found in financial institutions across the City of London and throughout the world.

Why we're great.

We are one of the UK’s largest finance groups, with academics and practitioners across the discipline
Our Bloomberg Financial Market Lab gives you an insight into the tools you’ll use in the workplace
Our course explores innovation in banking so you will be ready to tackle the banking challenges of the future

THE Awards 2018 - Winner University of the Year

Our expert staff

Our Finance Group is one of the largest in the UK. Our team of experts are at the forefront of financial debate and combine academic and industry experience to explore issues that are truly relevant to people’s lives:

crowdfunding and finance of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)
commodity prices and their relation to food poverty
foreign bank ownership
bank mergers and acquisitions
the use of cash in modern society
corporate governance

The Essex Finance Centre is based at the School and uses social science theories to address the important issues faced by today’s organisations in the commercial, public and third sectors.

Specialist facilities

Our zero-carbon building reflects our sustainable approach to business.

Located on our Colchester Campus and part of the Knowledge Gateway, our Essex Business School building features a unique winter garden, which gives the building its own micro-climate. The Eden-style dome provides an innovative working environment, which includes:

a virtual trading floor with Bloomberg Terminals offering direct use of Bloomberg data, information and analytics
access to X_TRADER, industry-leading software for trading multiple markets from a single screen
light and spacious lecture theatres with ‘listen again’ recording to aid your study
study pods and innovation booths for group working
a café and adjacent foyer to enjoy on-site fresh food and drink
study skills workshops and advice

Your future

MSc Banking and Finance provides you with the foundation for a rewarding career in banking and finance, equipping you with the skills to lead at a global level. In 2018, 80% of our postgraduate taught students were in professional employment or further study within six months of graduating (DLHE 2017).

Many of our graduates enjoy roles in a host of occupations, including financial analysis, management, public administration and accountancy. They work for high-profile organisations and innovative SMEs such as:

National Bank of Kazakhstan
KPMG
Cerulli Associates, a research and consulting firm specialising in asset management
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
Groupon
Capital Markets Intelligence, a financial publisher
Credit Data Research, a business funder

We’re also proud of our student entrepreneurs, including international business incubator 0100Ventures and entrepreneurship website SlovakSTARTUP.

We work with the University’s Student Development Team to help you enhance your CV by taking part in careers opportunities, such as work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities. You can also attend our industry expert lectures in finance, as part of your course.

“Studying at Essex Business School helped me to identify my key skills so I could decide on a suitable career path. I developed expertise in banking and finance and undertook an undergraduate placement in Shanghai to apply what I’d learnt, whilst studying Mandarin.”

Alina Skuba, MSc Banking and Finance and BSc Banking and Finance

Entry requirements

UK entry requirements

A 2:2 degree, or international equivalent, in a numerate discipline such as: Economics, Finance Mathematics, Statistics, Science or Engineering.

Your degree should contain at least one module relating to: Economics, Finance, Mathematics (calculus), Quantitative Finance/Methods or Econometrics (probability).

International & EU entry requirements

We accept a wide range of qualifications from applicants studying in the EU and other countries. Get in touch with any questions you may have about the qualifications we accept. Remember to tell us about the qualifications you have already completed or are currently taking.

Sorry, the entry requirements for the country that you have selected are not available here. Please select your country page where you'll find this information.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, we require IELTS 6.5 overall with a minimum component score of 5.5

Additional Notes

The University uses academic selection criteria to determine an applicant’s ability to successfully complete a course at the University of Essex. Where appropriate, we may ask for specific information relating to previous modules studied or work experience.

Structure

Example structure

Most of our courses combine compulsory and optional modules, giving you freedom to pursue your own interests. All of the modules listed below provide an example of what is on offer from the current academic year. Our Programme Specification provides further details of the course structure for the current academic year.

Our research-led teaching is continually evolving to address the latest challenges and breakthroughs in the field, therefore to ensure your course is as relevant and up-to-date as possible your core module structure may be subject to change.

The example structure below is representative of this course if taken full-time. If you choose to study part-time, the modules will be split across 2 years.

Teaching and learning disclaimer

Following the impact of the pandemic, we made changes to our teaching and assessment to ensure our current students could continue with their studies uninterrupted and safely. These changes included courses being taught through blended delivery, normally including some face-to-face teaching, online provision, or a combination of both across the year.

The teaching and assessment methods listed show what is currently planned for 2021 entry; changes may be necessary if, by the beginning of this course, we need to adapt the way we’re delivering them due to the external environment, and to allow you to continue to receive the best education possible safely and seamlessly.

See full list of modules

Modern Banking

Explore the basics of the structure and environment of banking, and selected aspects of the applied economics of the modern banking firm. You study structure-conduct-performance, competition, bank efficiency, regulation, international banking and bank failures and crises.

View Modern Banking on our Module Directory

Dissertation

Your dissertation is the culmination of your Masters programme, where you apply the knowledge gained on your course to produce an extended independent piece of work. You generate an original idea, analyse literature and current knowledge and produce a coherent argument that shows your ability to relate theory to practice. Your dissertation will help you develop vital skills for the workplace, as well as the ability to analyse real problems through an academic lens. You are assigned a supervisor for the duration of your project.

View Dissertation on our Module Directory

Research Methods in Finance: Empirical Methods in Finance

This module equips you with the econometric tools and necessary experience to conduct empirical research in finance. You review statistical and basic econometric models and learn to apply econometric techniques in finance by considering topics such as (G)ARCH models, unit roots and cointegration.

View Research Methods in Finance: Empirical Methods in Finance on our Module Directory

Bank Strategy and Risk

Analyse the key strategic developments in banking and the main aspects of risk management in modern banks. You are introduced to the concept of shareholder value in banking, the main banking strategies to create shareholder value, the key risks in banking, and the most important tools required to manage bank risks.

View Bank Strategy and Risk on our Module Directory

Portfolio Management

Understand the process of portfolio management. You cover the main concepts such as efficient diversification, managing risk exposures, and the valuation of financial assets that are at the core of managing investment portfolios, and pay special attention to the practicalities of the implementation of these concepts.

View Portfolio Management on our Module Directory

Postgraduate Mathematics Preparation

This module covers topics in mathematics that are required in Masters-level finance courses at the University of Essex. You focus on the basics of linear algebra, differential calculus including optimisation and dynamics.

View Postgraduate Mathematics Preparation on our Module Directory

Trading Global Financial Markets (optional)

Gain theoretical knowledge and a practical understanding of financial markets, trading strategies, risk and money management and trader analytics at the highest level. You study a mix of classroom-based instruction, case studies and practical trading exercises where you trade on real-time simulated global markets through the use of industry-strength proprietary trading software in the trading lab.

View Trading Global Financial Markets (optional) on our Module Directory

Corporate Finance (optional)

This module offers you a standard introduction of the field of corporate finance at postgraduate level. You consider the classical areas of Modigliani-Miller irrelevance, Taxes and capital structure, Trade-off theory and Pecking order theory of capital structure, before exploring the more modern areas, which are essentially based on contract theory.

View Corporate Finance (optional) on our Module Directory

Derivative Securities (optional)

Master the pricing of financial derivatives and their use for hedging financial risks. You study the basics of futures and options, analyse the Black-Scholes and binomial option pricing models, and consider various numerical techniques for pricing financial derivatives. Futures and options are then utilised in the context of hedging financial risks, and you are introduced to the concept of volatility trading and the treatment of volatility as an asset class.

View Derivative Securities (optional) on our Module Directory

Asset Pricing (optional)

Gain a formal introduction to asset pricing theories and empirical findings. You review the fundamental theories of the expected utility, asset pricing kernels, and risk-neutral valuation, covering the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and linear factor models arising from the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT). You also discuss empirical asset pricing studies.

View Asset Pricing (optional) on our Module Directory

Financial Modelling (optional)

Consider the use of modern econometric techniques in the analysis of financial time series. You cover multivariate models for stationary and non-stationary processes, such as Vector Autoregressive models, consider appropriate models for volatility, and study Markov processes and simulation methods used for financial modelling.

View Financial Modelling (optional) on our Module Directory

Behavioural Finance (optional)

Behavioural finance rejects crucial tenets of mainstream finance such as the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) on the basis that agents are less than fully rational, and that arbitrage fails to eliminate mispricing. Instead it identifies market anomalies or regularities such as holiday effects that are at odds with the EMH. You learn to use ideas from cognitive psychology, such as overconfidence, and aspects of imperfect arbitrage to explain these.

View Behavioural Finance (optional) on our Module Directory

Risk Management (optional)

The recent financial crisis and credit crunch have demonstrated that risk management was too narrowly defined. In this course you examine the Value at Risk (VAR) measure of financial risk developed in the 1990s, before discussing the new post-crisis Regulatory environment.

View Risk Management (optional) on our Module Directory

Fixed Income Securities (optional)

Discover the concepts and tools that are useful to asset managers who want to use fixed income securities for investing, market-making or speculating. You first study fixed income markets and instruments, before going on to explore basic concepts of bond portfolio management and investigating the quantitative tools used to value bonds and manage bonds' portfolios.

View Fixed Income Securities (optional) on our Module Directory

Finance Research Techniques Using Matlab (optional)

This module introduces Matlab, software commonly used in financial organisations and academia to model portfolio construction and solve banking and finance challenges. You learn how to use Matlab programming language to solve financial problems. These may include finding optimal portfolio weights, calculating and simulating derivative prices and implied volatilities, and estimating and simulating GARCH models, amongst others.

View Finance Research Techniques Using Matlab (optional) on our Module Directory

Industry Expert Lectures in Finance (optional)

Taught exclusively by leading industry experts, this module offers you a unique opportunity to appreciate the latest developments and issues faced by leading practitioners in the areas of quantitative finance and risk management.

View Industry Expert Lectures in Finance (optional) on our Module Directory

Data Analysis: Cross Sectional, Panel and Qualitative Data Methods (optional)

View Data Analysis: Cross Sectional, Panel and Qualitative Data Methods (optional) on our Module Directory

Teaching

Tailor the content of your course to more closely fit your interests and aspirations
Courses focus on practical applications and links with industry
We run an open seminar series

Assessment

Regular assessment is by coursework, presentations, case studies, group work, tests and examinations

Dissertation

You submit a 15,000 word dissertation

Fees and funding

Home/UK fee

£12,410

International fee

£19,380

EU students commencing their course in the 2021-22 academic year will be liable for the International fee.

Fees will increase for each academic year of study.

What's next

We hold Open Days for all our applicants throughout the year. Our Colchester Campus events are a great way to find out more about studying at Essex, and give you the chance to:

tour our campus and accommodation
find out answers to your questions about our courses, student finance, graduate employability, student support and more
meet our students and staff

If the dates of our organised events aren’t suitable for you, feel free to get in touch by emailing tours@essex.ac.uk and we’ll arrange an individual campus tour for you.

You can apply for this postgraduate course online. Before you apply, please check our information about necessary documents that we’ll ask you to provide as part of your application.

We aim to respond to applications within two weeks. If we are able to offer you a place, you will be contacted via email.

For information on our deadline to apply for this course, please see our ‘how to apply’ information.

Home to 15,000 students from more than 130 countries, our Colchester Campus is the largest of our three sites, making us one of the most internationally diverse campuses on the planet - we like to think of ourselves as the world in one place.

The Campus is set within 200 acres of beautiful parkland, located two miles from the historic town centre of Colchester – England's oldest recorded town. Our Colchester Campus is also easily reached from London and Stansted Airport in under one hour.

How to get to Colchester Campus

Find out more

If you live too far away to come to Essex (or have a busy lifestyle), no problem. Our 360 degree virtual tour allows you to explore the Colchester Campus from the comfort of your home. Check out our accommodation options, facilities and social spaces.

Our staff travel the world to speak to people about the courses on offer at Essex. Take a look at our list of exhibition dates to see if we’ll be near you in the future.

At Essex we pride ourselves on being a welcoming and inclusive student community. We offer a wide range of support to individuals and groups of student members who may have specific requirements, interests or responsibilities.

Find out more

The University makes every effort to ensure that this information on its programme specification is accurate and up-to-date. Exceptionally it can be necessary to make changes, for example to courses, facilities or fees. Examples of such reasons might include, but are not limited to: strikes, other industrial action, staff illness, severe weather, fire, civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack (whether declared or not), natural disaster, restrictions imposed by government or public authorities, epidemic or pandemic disease, failure of public utilities or transport systems or the withdrawal/reduction of funding. Changes to courses may for example consist of variations to the content and method of delivery of programmes, courses and other services, to discontinue programmes, courses and other services and to merge or combine programmes or courses. The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will also keep students informed appropriately by updating our programme specifications.

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