Financial Engineering

Thirty percent of this master’s programme consists of fundamental financial disciplines and 70% involves subjects directly related to the profession. This flexible approach enables you to customize an individual curriculum focusing on those segments of the financial industry that most interest you.

Fundamental disciplines

• Theory of Finance
• Macroeconomics
• Econometrics

Professional disciplines

• Financial Markets, Institutions and Instruments
• Designing and Managing Investment Portfolios
• Financial Markets: Problems and Solutions

Elective courses

• Financial Market Analysis
• Diagnosing a Company’s Financial Condition
• Building Structural Financial Products
• International and Financial Markets
• Fundamentals of Quantitative Finance
• Python Programming Basics
• Legal Regulation of the Securities Market
• Derivative Financial Instruments
• Structuring Mergers and Acquisitions
• Types of Financial Risk and How to Manage Them
• IT for Financiers
• Analysis and Evaluation of Investment Projects
• Understanding Deep Learning
• Personal Capital: Management and Operations
• Basics of Machine Learning in Financial Practices
• Investment Strategies for Conservative Investors
• Structured Finance

1. Teaching staff—Classes are conducted by financial industry professionals from the Ministry of Finance, Sberbank, Central Bank, the Moscow Stock Exchange, Finam Bank, Alfa-Bank, Renaissance Capital, KPMG, and other financial organizations.
2. Internship opportunities—Representatives of such major financial entities as Rosneft, Rosnano, Lukoil, Freedom Finance, Raiffeisenbank, the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Sbertekh, VTB Capital and KPMG regularly approach us with internship offers.
3. Active work with such databases as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Bureau van Dijk, SPARK, etc.
4. Dual degree programmes—Although you will be based in Moscow, Russia, HSE University partners with many foreign universities that provide strong financial training and where students can complete internships or part of their studies and receive two master’s degrees — from HSE and the foreign partner university.

In addition to a flexible curriculum, the programme includes research projects, as well as a research seminar on current problems in the development of financial markets and projects led by market practitioners and experts who hold key positions in financial institutions and companies in the real sector.

Projects that students can undertake include the following:

• Analysis of trends and prospects for the development of the global and Russian ETF market
• Trading bonds on the OTC market
• What investors need from mobile brokerage applications
• Designing structural products for retail investors
• Assessing the influence of regulatory measures on corporate bond market development
• Software tools for solving financial engineering problems
• Analysis of high yield bonds
• Invest strategies: back-testing and constructing
• Estimation of risk-profile of inbestors

Master’s students can also earn a double degree with such partner universities as Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne (France), Humboldt University (Germany), Lancaster University (UK), Erasmus University (Netherlands), the University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and others.

Graduates of the financial engineering program have the necessary skills to build a successful career in investment and commercial banks working as analysts, individual banking specialists and department heads, especially at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, and Goldman Sachs.

Our graduates work in real sector corporations. They hold positions in investment, financial services and shareholder relations departments at Rosneft, Russian Railways, Rosnano, Lukoil, GMK, Norilsk Nickel, VimpelCom and Magnezit. Many of our graduates build careers in companies that develop new financial technologies (Fintech, Sberbank, Sbertekh, the Mezzanine Finance Fund), as well as in consulting and insurance companies (Ingosstrakh, Rosno, VTB Insurance, and KPMG).

You can enroll in the Financial Engineering master’s programme based on the results of academic competitions or the HSE University entrance exams.

Enrollment is based on a competitive selection (portfolio). International applicants can receive individual consultations and submit their portfolios for preliminary review.

Applicants must pass a qualifying exam in English that includes written and listening components or present a certificate indicating a suitable level of English language proficiency.

Detailed information on portfolio requirements can be found here.

All students are admitted on a fee-paying basis only.