MSc Financial Technology

Overview

Financial technology is reshaping how money moves, risk is priced and customers bank. Durham University's MSc Fintech unites capital markets literacy with digital products, data science methods and regulatory competence. You will analyse payment rails and open banking, build quantitative credit and fraud models, evaluate distributed ledger applications with sober engineering and legal scrutiny, and design fintech products with unit economics that survive regulation. Graduates leave able to speak both the language of the trading floor and the product engineering room. MSc Financial Technology is taught as one award, not a list of unrelated modules. The published length is 24 months, and the credit total is 36. Students move from Financial Markets, Institutions & Fintech Landscapes through Financial Markets, Institutions & Fintech Landscapes; Corporate Finance & Valuation for Digital Assets; Programming & Data Analysis for Fintech; Payments Systems, Banking & Open Finance; Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers & Tokenisation; Machine Learning for Finance & Credit Risk, and finish on MSc Fintech Capstone Project. Each course has a question, a method, and a submission. In this field, students read a set of figures, build a small case, and state which assumption moves the result. Reading is financial statements, a recognition note, and a risk report. The artefact a marker expects is a recommendation that separates the decision, the numbers, and the risk. The award is built so that a graduate can do the following in practice: Map fintech value chains in payments, lending, wealth and market infrastructure Apply machine learning responsibly to credit, fraud and personalisation Assess blockchain and tokenisation use cases for technical and regulatory fit Teaching assumes the student can read a source, attempt a problem before the seminar, and revise after feedback. Attendance at live seminars is part of the design. The capstone or final course must use the methods of the earlier courses; a project that ignores them does not pass. This course does not confer an accounting, audit, or financial-services licence. The pages for each course name the topics that are examined. Those topics are the syllabus. A brochure line is not a substitute for them.

Modules reference UK FCA, PSD2/open banking, and Basel-aligned risk thinking without reducing the degree to a compliance checklist. Guest practitioners from payments, challenger banks and market infrastructure firms join seminars. Capstone projects may partner with fintech firms under data governance agreements.

Who This Programme Is For

• ✦Finance professionals moving into product, digital banking or innovation roles
• ✦Software engineers entering regulated financial services
• ✦Consultants specialising in banking transformation
• ✦Founders building payments, lending or wealth-tech ventures

Programme Structure & Delivery

Learning Outcomes

• ✦Map fintech value chains in payments, lending, wealth and market infrastructure
• ✦Apply machine learning responsibly to credit, fraud and personalisation
• ✦Assess blockchain and tokenisation use cases for technical and regulatory fit
• ✦Interpret conduct, prudential and data protection requirements for digital finance
• ✦Design fintech product strategies with defensible unit economics

Career Pathways

• ✦Fintech Product Manager
• ✦Digital Banking Strategist
• ✦Payments / Open Banking Specialist
• ✦Risk & Fraud Analytics Lead
• ✦RegTech / Compliance Technology Consultant

Curriculum