香港理工大学应用科学及纺织学院

Programme Aim and Objective

• To provide students with strong mathematical and statistical skills and a thorough understanding of their applications in the world of modern investment and finance analytics.
• To develop students' ability in quantitative analysis, critical thinking and communication skills, which will enable them to develop an outlook and methodology that remain valuable in pursuing a variety of careers investment banking, fund management, data analytics, risk management or financial product development and pricing.

Characteristics

The proliferation of mathematical tools in optimizing the strategic use of data has continued to be essential to investments. In particular, the use of Finance Analytics has been evolving from “analysing data of the past with an underlying question in mind in order to help making decisions”, to generating what questions should one even be asking in the first place. Thus, the inexorable escalation in the level of mathematics and technological complexities of financial instruments have been defining the very edge of competitiveness in the industry. This, together with the mathematical work of Markowitz, Sharpe, Scholes, Merton (Nobel Laureates in Economics in 1990 and 1997) and Black, has led to a massive demand within financial institutions for mathematically trained graduates with an awareness of markets and their operations.

This programme focus on the study of modern data analytics needed in recent financial industry. Its curriculum design covers subjects such as big data analytics, business intelligence and customer relationship management, machine learning, algorithmic trading and artificial intelligence, which will strengthen students’ data interpretation and analytical skills and support them to develop career in the evolved investment and finance industries.

Growing Demand for Financial Analysts

In April 2015, the Government of HKSAR published a report on manpower projection to 2022. It is projected that the fastest growing economic sectors in terms of manpower requirements during the period from 2012 to 2022 will be Financial services (at an average annual growth rate of 2.2%); Professional and business services (1.5%); Information and communications; and Construction (both at 1.4%).

This programme is designed to develop students’ ability in quantitative analysis, data analysis, critical thinking and communications skills, which enable them to pursue careers in business and financial-related field. Many of our graduates have found employment in prestigious financial institutions and renowned corporations throughout the Asia Pacific area.

Programme Structure

In this 4-Year programme, students are requested to complete all the General University Requirement (GUR) and Discipline-Specific Requirements (DSR), including compulsory subjects, elective subjects, common applied science subjects and a one-year capstone project to fulfill the credit requirement for graduation.

Compulsory Subjects include:

• Finance: Introduction to Economics, Accounting for Decision Making, Business Finance, Corporate Finance, Theory of Interest and Portfolio Analysis
• Statistics: Statistics for Finance Analytics, Applied Linear Models for Finance Analytics, Statistical Inference, High Dimensional Data Analysis
• Computer Science: Principles of Programming, Database System
• Mathematics: Mathematical Methods for Finance, Further Mathematical Methods for Finance, Operations Research Methods