Finance and Fintech

Disrupting the financial world

GOALS

The Master in Finance and Fintech aims to enable young professionals to deal with the digital transformation that is disruptively changing the financial market, by combining traditional financial skills with deep understanding of new digital technologies. The new emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data analytics are deeply modifying the landscape of the financial market, creating immense opportunities for incumbent players but also serious threats from innovative start-ups.The use of new technologies for financial applications has become vital for banking and insurance companies, which must acquire a thorough understanding of these tools to continue competing in the changing world. Peer-to-peer lending, mobile payments and Insurtech are not futurist trends, but factual reality.


WHO IS IT FOR?

The Master in Finance and Fintech is designed for young graduates with excellent knowledge of English, interested in the financial technology sector (“fintech”), as they will learn along with the traditional finance skills, new competencies in new technologies such as AI, big data analytics, blockchain, with the prospect of professional growth in managerial functions connecting technical specialists and finance departments.


CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

The explosion of digital technologies in the financial markets has generated an enormous need for young professionals to act as a link between the management and the computer scientists, who are at ease both with traditional financial competencies, as well as in translating them in new digital solutions and applications. Thanks to Bologna Business School’s numerous collaborations with leading players in the digital sector, these new generation of managers, equally grounded on financial competencies and on new technologies, will be able to anticipate, intercept, and exploit the new trends in the financial industry. Through the Master it is possible, once having completed in the companies the years of experience required, to access the following job positions: Financial Analyst Consultant, Strategic Analyst, Investment Analyst, Risk Manager.

If you would like to begin your professional growth in managerial functions, contact the master Program Manager.

 

SERVICES

Bologna Business School provides student support services included in the tuition fee for the Master.

 

Programme Advisory Committee:

  • Davide Caramico – Vice President Platform Partnership, Ding.com
  • Alessandra Caroni – Senior Economic Adviser, Her Majesty’s Treasury
  • Apoorva Anand Srikkanth – Deeptech Ventures Manager, ZINC
  • Paolo Gianturco – Senior Partner, FSI Consulting & FStech Leader, Deloitte Italia
  • Carlo Giugovaz – Founder & CEO, Supernovae Labs, Finnovaction
  • Federico Sforza – Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, AideXa
  • Piero Crivellaro – Corporate Group Head Public Affairs, Nexi Group
  • Gabriele Sabato – Co-Founder & CEO, Wiserfunding


Ranking

RANKED BUSINESS QS

QS Quacquarelli Symonds is the international network focused on services, analysis and in-depth reports of post-experience and university education, geared toward international mobility and career development. The QS Online MBA Ranking is based on insights from the business world and a methodology that allows programs to be evaluated according to four parameters: Faculty and Teaching, Class Profile, Employability and Class Experience.

 

Accreditation

EQUIS

Bologna Business School is EQUIS – EFMD Quality Improvement System accredited, one of the most important international quality assessment and continuous improvement systems for Schools of Management and Business Administration.


Emanuele Bajo

Emanuele Bajo

Director of Studies
emanuele.bajo@unibo.it

" The technological innovation will profoundly change the structure of the financial market and only through the deep understanding of the digital technological innovations will be possible to survive and compete with new business modes. Today the market players, banks and insurance companies have a huge advantage of position and protection which is provided by the rules system. However, the speed of change can risk the survival of profitable business areas. "

CLASS PROFILE A.Y. 2023/2024

GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

  • 25 y.o.

    AVERAGE AGE

  • 57%

    INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

  • 7

    COUNTRIES REPRESENTED

  • 7%

    FEMALE STUDENTS

Structure

The Master in Finance and Fintechis a full-time program structured in 1,500 hours of learning activities over 12 months of study, divided into: 400 hours of lecturing, an estimated 600 hours of independent study, and 500 hours of internship. The Master offers a series of pre-courses at the start of the academic schedule:DBMS Systems and SQL language, Exploratory data analysis, Principles of programming (Python language).

The structure of the Master is divided into:

  • First term: October 2024 – March 2025
  • Second term: March 2025 – June 2025
  • Internship: June 2025 – October 2025

The two terms are followed by an internship period of 500 working hours. This internship can be carried out at various companies and agencies in Italy or abroad. You are expected to make the most of these opportunities by learning from the professionals you will be working with.

At the end of the internship you will be required to hand in a ‘Final Report’, which you will present to the Director of Studies showcasing your activities and analyzing the theories and lessons learned during the academic part.

Students who are interested can also choose to take an extracurricular course of Italian.

COURSES

The role of IT into banking industry is dramatic and innovative at the same time. Banking business models are redesigning by new paradigms: they will impact to strategies and operational perspectives.  Banking players need to be into the new picture, supported by new toolkit able to combine the current landscape with new technologies.

Last but not least, ITC firms, media networks, and Big techs companies are the new entrants into financial services arena. FinTech emerging applications are disruptive forces capable to transforming the financial services industry by making transactions faster, cheaper, more secure and transparent. Our banking course delivers a general framework of financial industry and provide some specific knowledge into the disruptive innovation in terms of organization/processes/infrastructures/applications.

Torluccio Giuseppe

This course provides an alternative approach to the study of financial markets: behavioral finance. This approach starts with an observation that the assumptions of investor rationality are overwhelmingly contradicted by both psychological research and empirical evidence. The course gives an introduction into this field and includes results from behavioral finance that help to understand many puzzles in traditional finance. The psychology of dealing with automated financial counterparts/advisors as opposed to humans will also be discussed.

Marinelli Nicoletta

The digitization of the economy is one of the most relevant issues of our time. The objective of this course is to analyze how digital economy has fundamentally challenged traditional business models and created new business opportunities. We will start with a brief introduction of the digital economy and then analyze the specific business strategies adopted by the different players in this ecosystem, specifically platforms. We will also discuss the implications for public policy and regulation. In particular, we will consider whether new business practices and contracts in the digital economy are beneficial or detrimental to society. Real case studies related to Amazon, Airbnb, Booking.com, Facebook, Google, Uber, and others, will be analyzed.

Mantovani

The course focuses on the finance aspects following the life cycle of young and innovative ventures from their start-up. These young ventures usually require substantial outside financing in early stages to eventually create employment, growth, social contributions and tax revenues in their future. Bank financing is hardly available for these ventures and therefore, all funds need to be raised from other sources, e.g. friends and family, business angels, or from professional financial intermediaries, so-called venture capital and private equity funds. Besides those traditional channels, ventures can raise funds from “the crowd” using digital platforms (crowdfunding) or blockchain-based technologies (ICOs).

Groh Alexander

This course will provide students with an overview of financial markets and the valuation of securities. The course will start presenting the financial system and a taxonomy of the type of securities traded in financial markets. The single asset classes will be then studied, including fixed-income and money market securities, equity instruments, mutual funds, financial derivatives, and hybrids.

Duqi Andi

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a discipline whose goal is to realize this dream through the use of a wide variety of techniques, from logic-based symbolic computation to sub-symbolic models inspired by the structure of the brain, such as neural networks. This course will provide an introductory overview of the various existing artificial intelligence techniques, focusing on industrial applications, discussing future challenges and opportunities, and also addressing some of the social, economic, and ethical implications.

Gabbrielli Maurizio
Roberto Amadini

The aim is to provide basic knowledge concerning the main concepts and principles of computer security (e.g., risk, tools for risk assessment and evaluation, attacks and their typical structure, resources, functional systems requirements, human component). In this way, the course will provide the basic tools for the design and implementation of reasonably secure systems. During this process, either methodological, technological and behavioral aspects (i.e. operation security) need to be considered.

D’Angelo Gabriele

This course aims at presenting the new emerging trends in the financial industries. Peer-to-peer lending, mobile payments, blockchain-based trading and the impact of new technologies on insurance and regulation are some of the topics that will be discussed through a case-based approach presented by fintech industry leaders.

Gianturco

The course analyzes the legal framework of the rights of the person when dealing with technology, the protection of personal data, the intersection between person and market in the face of technological platforms and big data, the normative references of GDPR, Digital Service Act and other legal formats with a global vocation. Attention will be paid to the ethical challenge underlying the balance between human intervention and artificial intelligence, to the comparison between legal language and algorithms from the applicability of models to the role of law and regulation in the face of technological change and to the governance and risk management of data.
Some insights concern automated decisions, profiling in the credit and in the insurance sector and the coexistence between incumbents and new entrants in the financial sector.

Manes Paola

The course deals with financial risk management with an emphasis on the recognition of price risk and on financial risk management tools from the point of view of the company. A significant part of the course is dedicated to the analysis of derivatives and their use in risk management.

Bajo Emanuele

Today it is crucial to be able to use data for making better marketing decisions. This is possible by better understanding, predicting and managing customers’ behavior in a landscape where customers and brands (firms) are decision makers. This course focuses on the applied use of various techniques/methods, theories and approaches from marketing literature in practical business cases. In more particular words this means exploring, investigating and predicting behavioral and attitudinal (customer) data to provide data-driven answers to relevant marketing questions

Konus Umut

The course aims to explore the principles of financial statement analysis. It provides the participants with a framework to understand how businesses’ value and risks are captured in financial statements and price them correctly.

Dal Maso Lorenzo

The course will provide an introduction to insurance products and insurance business. The aim of the course is to provide students the knowledge of insurance business that is required to apply technology and digital innnovation to this specific sector

Felician Leonardo

Neural networks are a class of machine learning algorithms, originally inspired by the brain, structured in layers of interconnected artificial neurons.

The network can be trained on data to optimize its connections to a specific task.

Deep neural networks, that is networks with multiple internal (so called hidden) layers, have recently seen a lot of success at practical applications. They’re at the heart of production systems at companies like Google and Facebook for image classification, speech recognition, natural language processing, language understanding or robotics.

The course gives an overview of the foundational ideas and the recent advances in neural nets, explaining the potentialities of the topic for practical purposes. We shall cover supervised and unsupervised techniques, methods for visualizing and understanding the behavior on neural nets, as well as adversarial techniques to fool them. We shall also hints to recent applications in the field of reinforcement learning, and some amazing results in game simulation.

Asperti Andrea

The course is focused on understanding of the opportunities arisen from digital transformation, in terms of innovative business models for companies and new value for users. Specifically, the course will deepen technology forecasting and technology roadmapping methodologies, applied to emerging digital trends, focusing on Fintech, IoT and Artificial Intelligence.

Meoli Azzurra

The course get the focus on the relevance that Artificial Intelligence software have in the development of strategic companies activities like customer care, processes automation and information management. Lessons give an overview on how Industry 4.0 companies may use Artificial Intelligence for their businesses, covering a wide range of tasks in Natural Language Processing such as sentiment analysis, topic classification and dialogue systems.

Belli Andrea

The course focuses on data protection law. After a brief overview of the Italian and European framework, the course will focus on the new General Data Protection Regulation, applicable all around Europe since May 2018. The course aims at exploring the relevant obligations of controllers and processors. Specific attention will also be paid to conditions of lawfulness of the processing, data subjects’ rights and controller’s accountability.

 

Miandar Toloue

This course emphasizes statistical methods useful for tackling modern-day data analysis problems. A special attention is dedicated to techniques that help managers to make intelligent use of databases by recognizing patterns and making predictions.

The students will develope skills to:
• plan a statistical data analysis process
• manage a data source
• choose the best method to analyze the data
• implement the analysis and interpret the results

Camillo Furio
Farnè Matteo

Big Data is a big challenge in today’s world. Companies and public entities urgently need to manage the acquisition, presentation, sharing, analysis and visualization of data.

The first module starts with a general overview of the Data Revolution and Industry 4.0 and then jumps into the world of technologies and architectures provided by the main cloud and technology vendors. In the second part, the course explores how to use structured and unstructured data at their best, so to jump in the “AI world” to get insights to provide support to business decisions, with some case studies.

Baffetti Federico

The course discusses some relevant themes related to blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, ICOs, smart contracts and novel applications that can be built over the blockchain. Bitcoin and novel cryptocurrencies gathered momentum in the last months. More and more investors look with interest at these technologies, while others label them as a dangerous speculative bubble. The truth is that the blockchain, and the alternative implementations of a distributed ledger, represent very innovative technologies, that can be exploited to build novel distributed applications. Moreover, the possibility of creating smart contracts, running on top of the blockchain, permits trusted interactions and agreements among different (and possibly anonymous) parties, without the need for a central authority. This course will illustrate the main principles and conceptual foundations of the blockchain and smart contracts.

Ferretti Stefano

This course provides an introduction to the basic principles and methods of Data Mining and Machine Learning, with emphasis on Classification, Clustering, Association Rules, Outlier discovery. Analysis of the main problems related to data quality and data transformation. Python will be used as part of the course to solve machine learning problems.

Sartori Claudio

Learning approach

The main aim of our teaching staff is to first lay down a solid grounding of theory and then to build on this foundation by introducing more practical aspects. This method will result in you confidently entering the work environment of this industry, ready to deal with any scenario you will face.

The teaching staff will help you grasp these concepts and techniques through the use of lectures and seminars; group projects and company visits; guest speakers and case studies; videos and presentations; as well as individual assignments and assisted private studying.

The courses are structured to give the maximum freedom to learn to the students and allow the professors to teach and assess the students in the best way possible. Assessments can take the form of individual/group presentations, projects, oral and written exams as well as, of course, class participation.

Faculty

Faculty members at Bologna Business School work together offering outstanding teaching standards. An international and interdisciplinary approach is guaranteed by a joint team of distinguished national core professors, adjunct, visiting professors, guest speakers and top managers.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

The integration with companies is a priority and an ever-present feature of all programs of the Bologna Business School, hence for the Master in Finance and Fintech too.

The School is fully committed to creating employability, by way of a systematic career service action, constantly focused on matching at best the students’ professional projects with the needs companies have.

The internship is an exceptional springboard, suffice it to say that six months after the end of the full-time masters at Bologna Business School on average 91% of students work in a company.

The BBS Career Service assists and supports students since the very beginning, along a training and professional development path. This is accomplished by organizing a series of workshops, with the aim of providing the fundamental tools and resources to be appropriately prepared for the labor market.

To achieve this goal, students are involved in several workshops, among which we may list:

  • Writing a CV and a Cover Letter
  • How to create an effective Linkedin profile
  • How to prepare for a job interview

 

In addition to this, thanks to the collaboration with professional career counselors, students receive a customized service, in order to understand their strengths and to build a professional development plan, which will turn out to be helpful when looking for an internship. Here follow some of the activities:

  • Initial guidance interviews
  • Specific interviews, focused on one’s own career plan
  • Continuous support to students with one – to – one sessions

 

Technology has become an integral part of finance, transforming it into fertile ground for curious minds, problem solvers and strategists. It calls out entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who thrive tackling cross-functional problems. Programs like BBS Master in Finance and Fintech can help in developing adaptable skills to navigate the digital, rapidly evolving world of finance.

Reeta Hemmenki BN

Reeta Hemminki, Senior Analyst, Credit Data Research

 

There are many Fintech companies out there looking for people like you, so don’t be afraid to approach them. Experience is not so relevant, it’s about the willingness to learn, the passion to make a difference, the desire to build the future instead of revisiting the past or sitting on your laurels.

Reeta Hemmenki BN

Candice Koo, Co-founder and MD, CANCAN Global payments and promotions

 

 

P

Alumni

Gabriele Ripellino – Italy

Engineering Consultant - Industry X-Mobility, Accenture
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2021/2022)

"For several decades, technology has been enabling improvement and personalization of financial services and products. Today, even non-Financial Services companies can meet the financial needs of their customers: the concept of Embedded Finance is just the first step toward "invisible" finance. I could not fail to mention the Metaverse, without talk about the new professional roles of two historically distinct worlds, such as technology and finance, that are and will be inescapable. These considerations, the omnipresence of digital finance and the skills that the job market requests, let me choose a Master Course that was a mix of technical, business-oriented and internationality, like the one offered by BBS"

Juan Pablo Soriano – Mexico

Program Management Office Analyst, N26
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2020/2021)

"We live in an ever-changing environment where embracing change is not optional anymore. The Master in Finance & FinTech gave me an exhausting picture of the state-of-the-art technologies and how organizations are profiting from them to create, and change business models to achieve operational efficiency. Furthermore, the solid background in finance gained during the program was a fundamental pillar to stand where I am today, being a link between financial and business decisions with a technological background to disrupt the banking industry"

Federico Costa – Italy

Consultant, Deloitte
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2019/2020)

"The Master in Finance and Fintech provides you with managerial skills, complete and exhaustive knowledge of the financial world, and, through workshops and group works, provides excellent technical skills in data analysis. When you join the BBS you are aware that you are going beyond mere specialized university training. You become part of an international community made up of prepared and ambitious people. Based on the results obtained, I can certainly ensure that the Master in Finance and Fintech was a fundamental investment for my personal and professional growth. "

Edoardo Yien – Italy

Senior Consultant, Be | Shaping The Future
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2019/2020)

"With a passion for Finance and its implementation, the master in Finance & Fintech opened me the eyes to the expertise of technical concepts and tools such as Ai and Big Data that can be employed in the Finance industry. All the different cultures in the course, the totality of experts of the sector and the well-known job network that the course offers have been a spur to enrol. In fact, right after the end of the classes, I received a job offer to work in the Fintech Team of a big company. I can’t wait to have the opportunity inside the company to follow fintech related projects and it’s just thank to BBS that all of this was made possible."

Ala Younes – Libya

Business Analyst, CRIF
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2019/2020)

"Having the interest in both pure finance and emerging technologies I found the master in Finance and Fintech the right fit in order to have a solid knowledge of each separate and combined. Supervised workshops and study groups guided by highly qualified community members allow students to acquire fundamental academic and professional skills. Being in such wide international community helps students to quickly be recognised and receive job offers from various leading companies in both financial and technological sectors."

Wiktor Oleksy – Poland

Business Analyst, CRIF
Master in Finance and Fintech (A.Y. 2019/2020)

"It is difficult to quantify the range of challenges that I have experienced and completed during the Master in Finance and Fintech. When I was signing up for this specialized course I had a certain idea of financial technology concepts, but only after finishing the Master I faced a reality check, and understood how broad the Fintech world is. I also learnt how interconnected it is with other scientific areas and phenomena. Learning that, and also thanks to the BBS career network, I was able to find an internship and then work full time at an Italian company in the industry. "

COMPANIES

The goal of the Career Service is also to allow students to connect with national and international companies. Over the years, Bologna Business School has managed to establish a wide-ranging network and a sound partnership with leading companies in Italy, thanks to a personalized approach, based on each company’s needs. The collaboration features the following activities:

  • Sending CV Books
  • Sharing internship opportunities
  • Company presentations
  • Career days
  • Project works
  • In-class activities with case studies presented by Managers and/or HR professionals

Moreover, companies support the Master in Finance and Fintech with scholarships, professional opportunities, career fairs and company presentations.

The companies that worked with us in 2022/2023 are:

ACCENTURE BACCIARDI PARTNERS BAKER HUGHES BANCA AIDEXA BKN301 BEREBEL (GRUPPO UNIPOL) BE SHAPING THE FUTURE BIP BPER CRIF DELOITTE EY FABRICK GELLIFY INTESA SAN PAOLO IVECO GROUP L'OREAL MACRON MEDIOBANCA NTT DATA PHILIP MORRIS PWC SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SEFORALL SUPERNOVAE LABS TESLA TRUESCREEN TXT GROUP VERSACE VICEVERSA VOLVERO WISERFUNDING

FEES

The tuition fees for the Master is 14,800 euro (VAT free) to be paid in three installments:

  • First installment: 1,850 euros
  • Second installment: 7,000 euros
  • Third installment: 5,950 euros

The fee includes participation in the Master, all the study material available through the online platform, and access to the services and facilities of Bologna Business School. Furthermore, the fee gives participants the right to take advantage of the supporting activities of the School, such as the language courses and the master lectures by invitation. Free parking is also available within BBS Campus.

Additionally, with the Student Card of the University of Bologna, students have access to all of the university facilities, including over 100 libraries, digital resources and study halls (including databases and online subscriptions); the three city center canteens and all university student related discount offers. More information is available on the site of the University of Bologna: http://www.unibo.it/it/servizi-e-opportunita

SCHOLARSHIPS

At Bologna Business School we understand the importance of financial aid in supporting our students to achieve their educational goals. We are aware that an advanced, high quality training path can be a significant commitment, at the same time we also truly believe that investing in one’s future always pays back.

Bologna Business School is pleased to offer partial scholarships of 6,000€ and 4,000€ available to the most deserving students. The scholarships will be awarded on the basis of merit criteria to the students occupying the highest positions after the selection process. The highest ranked students will be those with not only a solid academic and/or professional background, but also those who have proven to be the most motivated to participate in the course. The winners will be informed at the time of the admission.

 

REQUIREMENTS

In order to be admitted to the Master’s course you must have:

  • Bachelor’s degree (obtained within the closing date of enrollment of the selection round in which you participate)
  • Excellent level of English

The admission to the Master is subject to the positive evaluation of the selection test in line with the number of places available. The selection process consists of one Aptitude Test and one English Language Test, both prerequisites to be admitted to the motivational interview in English.

 

APPLICATION PROCESS

  1. Register on “Studenti Online” by connecting to the site studenti.unibo.it
  2.  Select “First Level Master”.
  3.  Pay the participation fee for the selection (60 euro for each Master)
  4.  Upload the required documents online:
  • Curriculum Vitae in English
  • Motivational letter in English
  • Letters of reference in English (optional)
  • Front and back ID/passport
  • If available, a GMAT/GRE certificate with a score above 550 (GMAT) or equivalent (GRE). Applicants uploading this certificate are exempted from the written aptitude test as part of the admission process.
  • If available, an English language certificate (TOEFL, IELTS or CAMBRIDGE) attesting a minimum English level of B2 in the European framework. Applicants uploading this certificate are exempted from the written English test as part of the admission process.
  • Photograph of recognition
  • For degrees obtained in Italy: Self-certification of Bachelor’s degree with details of exams taken and relative grades
  • For degrees obtained abroad: Dichiarazione di Valore (to be requested at the Italian Embassy in the country where the degree was obtained) or Diploma Supplement (to be requested at the university where the degree was obtained). In the event that the candidate is unable to obtain the Dichiarazione di Valore or Diploma Supplement at the time of enrollment, he/she may temporarily replace it with a Conditional Enrollment Form, which will be sent after enrollment by fintech@bbs.unibo.it

For further guidance, students who obtained a bachelor’s degree abroad are encouraged to check the page below: https://www.unibo.it/en/teaching/enrolment-transfer-and-final-examination/declaration-of-value-translation-and-legalization

For further information concerning the selection process and the related documents, we invite you to consult the Master details and download the documents available in this section.

CALL FOR APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS TO APPLY TO THE SELECTION CONDITIONAL ENROLLMENT FORM

CONTACT US

     
     

DOWNLOAD BROCHURE

     
     

Book an appointment

     
     
Contact us
Federica Giannattasio Program Manager

Telefono: +39 0512090132

Email: fintech@bbs.unibo.it

Martina Carissimi Junior Program Manager

Telefono: +39 0512090184

Email: fintech@bbs.unibo.it

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