Focus on Fintech: The Employment Pipeline

Fintech is transforming the entire economy. From out of nowhere, financial-technology now dominates internal corporate discussion. Every company wants to get involved. Businesses have re-organized themselves and have poured resources into fintech. Unfortunately, companies can't find enough qualified employees with a fintech background.

That is a big problem.

Business schools are starting to fill the gap.

The NYU Stern School of Business was the first school to understand the trend. It started a MBA fintech-specialization. “marrying finance and data science,” in 2016. The school explained that tech innovation:
can disrupt existing industry structures and blur industry boundaries, facilitate strategic disintermediation, revolutionize how firms create and deliver products and services, created significant privacy, regulation, and law enforcement challenges, provide new gateways for entrepreneurship, and seed support for inclusive growth.

From the outset, NYU Stern had no curriculum related to fintech. It had to start from scratch. Focus was placed on cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, artificial intelligence, digital trading platforms, mobile payment systems, and peer-to-peer finance. The school eventually established a transformative curriculum. Current courses include “Robo Advisors & Systematic Trading,” Digital Currencies, Blockchains & the Financial Services Industry,” and Dealing with Data.”
NYU Stern hosted its 2nd Annual Fintech Conference just late last year. The conference is widely-anticipated and it featured dozens of industry leaders.

Other business schools have also started fintech courses, including Stanford, Columbia, and Georgetown. Students from the MIT Sloan School of Management founded the MIT Bitcoin Club. The organization hosts the Bitcoin Expo, the world’s largest educational Bitcoin event. Similarly, University of Pennsylvania Wharton students started an organization called Wharton FinTech. It holds regular meetings, hosts guest speakers and offers career placement services. The Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia recently started a fintech “area of emphasis.” Mumbai University now offers a Masters in Fintech.

Financial-services firms will benefit from the new fintech programs and courses. For their part, students have demanded even more course offerings. Enrollment has been unusually high. In fact, fintech programs are likely more popular than even investment banking programs.