MSc Financial Risk Management Curriculum
The programme consists of 6 core modules, alongside a wide range of elective modules. Students will choose 25 ECTS of elective modules in Hilary Term. The final Trinity term is dedicated to your dissertation. Assessment is through a blend of written examinations and continuous coursework.
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September-December Michaelmas Term |
January-April Hilary Term |
May-August Trinity Term |
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| Electives |
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Note: Modules offered each academic year are subject to change. The modules listed above and below are the modules and timetables for 2025/26.
Module Descriptions
Credit Risk (5 ECTS)
See how risk decisions play out in real market conditions. Combine hands-on trading simulations with deep analysis of credit risk, exploring how asset valuations, volatility and behavioural biases interact. Learn how financial institutions measure, manage and model credit risk, and why governance, regulation and IFRS 9 compliance are essential for stability.
How this fits your MSc journey: Blends technical credit risk expertise with behavioural insight, preparing you to make sound, data-driven decisions under pressure
Learning outcomes:
- Identify credit risk sources: Recognise where credit risk arises and the transactions most affected.
- Apply governance principles: Understand how leading institutions manage credit risk responsibly.
- Measure and model risk: Calculate exposure, probability of default and expected loss using current modelling methods.
- Integrate analysis approaches: Compare fundamental credit analysis with market measures like CDS spreads and bond pricing.
- Navigate regulation and accounting: Interpret IFRS 9 principles, regulatory frameworks and their practical implementation.
Operational Risk (5 ECTS)
Protect enterprise value through smarter risk management. Learn to build robust frameworks, set clear risk appetites, and create policies that align with real-world operations and regulatory expectations. Use interactive case studies from banking and industry to apply best practices in risk control and measurement.
How this fits your MSc journey: Equips you with practical, cross-sector risk management skills vital for governance, compliance, and enterprise resilience roles.
Learning outcomes:
- Design risk frameworks: Build and implement effective policies grounded in best practice.
- Embed risk culture: Align operational risk with a firm’s values, appetite, and tolerance.
- Categorise and assess risks: Use tools like risk self-assessments and key risk indicators.
- Leverage loss data: Use internal and external data to strengthen risk insight and controls.
- Quantify capital needs: Apply techniques to measure regulatory and economic capital for operational risk.
Applications in Risk Management (5 ECTS)
Experience risk management in action. Tackle emerging challenges like ESG, cybersecurity, and financial crime through guest lectures, live projects, and company visits. Engage directly with industry leaders and top researchers to connect academic theory with dynamic, real-world practices.
How this fits your MSc journey: Broadens your perspective and builds professional readiness by linking core concepts with hands-on insights from the forefront of the industry.
Learning outcomes:
- Analyse emerging risks: Evaluate real-world threats in ESG, cybersecurity, and financial crime.
- Reflect on expert insights: Deepen understanding by engaging with leading academics and practitioners.
- Apply theory to practice: Bridge classroom learning with industry case studies and live projects.
- Collaborate on risk challenges: Work in teams to investigate and present solutions to real business problems.
- Communicate with impact: Deliver clear, professional insights through written and group project outputs.
Market Risk Measurement & Modelling (5 ECTS)
Tackle one of finance’s most critical challenges: understanding and managing market risk. Learn how banks, fund managers, and pension funds quantify and forecast risk using industry-standard measures like VaR and Expected Shortfall. Build Python modelling skills to apply theory directly to real-world risk scenarios.
How this fits your MSc journey: Combines quantitative finance and coding, preparing you for technical roles in risk management and portfolio analytics.
Learning outcomes:
- Measure market risk: Use key tools like price sensitivities, VaR, and Expected Shortfall to assess exposure.
- Apply portfolio theory: Understand the link between risk, return, and diversification.
- Estimate risk with precision: Use historical simulation, variance–covariance, and Monte Carlo methods for VaR.
- Model with Python: Apply coding to simulate and evaluate market risk.
- Back-test effectively: Evaluate the reliability of risk models using standard validation techniques.
Econometrics (5 ECTS)
Master the language of data-driven finance. Learn how to apply econometric models to real-world financial questions using time series, cross-sectional, and choice-based techniques. Gain hands-on experience with STATA and sharpen your ability to interpret complex outputs and academic research.
How this fits your MSc journey: Builds analytical depth for evaluating financial models and supporting evidence-based decision-making in advanced modules and research.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand core principles: Grasp regression modelling, hypothesis testing, and econometric logic in finance.
- Apply diverse models: Use both classical and non-linear models on time series and cross-sectional data.
- Work with STATA output: Analyse and interpret econometric results with confidence.
- Engage with research: Decode empirical findings in leading academic journal articles.
- Support financial research: Use econometric tools to build robust, data-backed financial insights.
Corporate Finance (5 ECTS)
Develop a strong foundation in the core principles of financial management and learn how finance drives strategic decision-making in organisations. Gain practical skills in investment appraisal, risk-return analysis, and value creation, while engaging with both theoretical frameworks and real-world financial practices.
How this fits your MSc journey: Equips you with essential financial literacy and decision-making skills that support leadership, strategy, and value creation across all areas of business.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand financial management fundamentals: Grasp the critical role of finance in organisational success and sustainability.
- Evaluate investment decisions: Apply key techniques to assess capital investments and guide financial strategy.
- Manage risk and return: Explore the balance between risk and return in corporate decision-making.
- Navigate financial markets: Understand stock market behaviour through alternative investment theories.
- Create corporate value: Examine how firms generate and maximise value in competitive environments.
Trading Psychology & Behavioural Analysis (5 ECTS)
Trade in real time and test your instincts under pressure. Learn how market psychology, behavioural biases and economic shifts drive asset prices and influence professional decision-making. Build confidence in managing risk and executing strategies in volatile conditions.
How this fits your MSc journey: Equips you with practical trading skills and behavioural insight essential for roles in asset management, trading and portfolio strategy.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand institutional dynamics: Compare how buy- and sell-side players approach decision-making.
- Decode market behaviour: Analyse the psychological forces behind price movements.
- Discover your trading style: Assess your strengths through simulation and feedback.
- Manage risk effectively: Apply strategies to handle volatility and liquidity stress.
- Build live strategies: Develop and test trading plans using macro and technical analysis.
FinTech in Banking, Insurance & Asset Management (5 ECTS)
Create the future of finance with hands-on experience in FinTech innovation. From AI-powered models to crypto and robo-advisors, you’ll design, build and pitch products that respond to real market needs within the regulatory landscape.
How this fits your MSc journey: Builds practical innovation skills for careers at the intersection of finance, technology and strategy.
Learning outcomes:
- Spot future trends: Track how FinTech transforms banking, insurance and asset management.
- Design user-first solutions: Wireframe products that blend finance expertise with customer needs.
- Harness AI tools: Use ML and GenAI to build intelligent financial applications.
- Research and validate: Align product design with market insights and regulatory demands.
- Pitch with impact: Present FinTech solutions that demonstrate commercial value and industry relevance.
Advanced Data Analysis (5 ECTS)
Turn complex datasets into powerful insights that drive strategic decisions. Learn cutting-edge econometric methods with a focus on panel data, blending cross-sectional and time series approaches for deeper, more accurate analysis. Gain the skills to apply statistical theory to real-world financial and economic challenges using industry-standard tools like STATA.
How this fits your MSc journey:
Provides advanced data analysis skills essential for empirical research, high-impact decision-making and your dissertation work.
Learning outcomes:
- Master econometric techniques: Apply advanced methods to analyse panel and cross-sectional data.
- Use professional software: Build competence in STATA or other econometric tools for applied analysis.
- Interpret complex outputs: Draw meaningful conclusions from financial and economic data.
- Evaluate model performance: Compare parametric, semi-parametric and non-parametric approaches for realistic problem-solving.
- Link analysis to decisions: Translate data-driven findings into actionable economic and financial strategies.
Energy Finance & Trading (5 ECTS)
Navigate the complexities of global energy finance. Understand how firms across the energy value chain are valued, how they manage risk, and how climate challenges reshape their strategies. Explore trading and hedging tactics using energy derivatives in a fast-evolving market.
How this fits your MSc journey: Sharpens sector-specific expertise, blending corporate valuation with practical insights into commodities and risk.
Learning outcomes:
- Map the energy value chain: Understand key players and their roles in the market.
- Value energy firms: Assess pricing methods and climate-related valuation impacts.
- Tackle industry challenges: Identify risks and strategic responses for energy companies.
- Trade energy assets: Build trading strategies tailored to energy markets.
- Advise on risk: Recommend hedging and risk management tools for energy exposure.
Financial Markets & Institutions (5 ECTS)
Understand how financial systems shape economic performance and stability. Explore the inner workings of markets and banks, dissect past financial crises and assess the regulatory reforms designed to prevent them.
How this fits your MSc journey: Builds a critical foundation for understanding the financial ecosystem that underpins much of global business and policy.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand financial systems: Grasp the key roles markets and institutions play in the economy.
- Assess crisis response mechanisms: Evaluate how policies manage financial risks and shocks.
- Analyse systemic failures: Investigate the causes and consequences of major financial crises.
- Evaluate regulatory change: Judge how well financial reforms support long-term stability.
- Demystify central banking: Understand the impact of central banks on markets and economies.
Managing Financial Risk in Start-ups & Scale-ups (5ECTS)
Understand the financial dynamics and risk landscape unique to entrepreneurial ventures. This module equips students with a practical and theoretical understanding of financial risk in the context of start-ups and scale-ups. It explores the full entrepreneurial lifecycle, from ideation and early-stage survival to growth and exit, through the lens of finance and stakeholder interests. Students will engage with core concepts of venture finance, ESG-aligned investment, regulatory frameworks, and the challenges of managing uncertainty in high-growth environments.
How this fits your MSc journey:
Provides essential tools and insights for assessing and managing financial risk in entrepreneurial ventures, supporting careers in venture finance, start-up advisory, entrepreneurship, policy-making, and innovation strategy.
Learning outcomes:
- Analyse venture finance instruments: Compare and contrast key forms of funding available to start-ups and scale-ups, including debt, equity, business angel investment, venture capital, and corporate venture capital.
- Diagnose entrepreneurial risk: Identify financial and strategic risks across different stages of the venture lifecycle and evaluate their implications for entrepreneurs and investors.
- Design risk mitigation strategies: Develop practical risk management approaches that align financial goals with stakeholder interests, including ESG and long-term stewardship objectives.
- Understand stakeholder perspectives: Evaluate how various stakeholders, founders, employees, investors, regulators, and policymakers—perceive and manage financial risk in entrepreneurial settings.
- Assess regulatory influences: Examine how legal, regulatory, and institutional environments affect venture valuation, funding strategies, fiduciary responsibilities, and exit opportunities.
- Bridge theory and practice: Apply scientific theory and real-world case analysis to understand the balance between negotiation, compliance, and collaborative finance in high-growth start-ups.
Sustainable Finance & Investment Management (10 ECTS)
Harness the power of finance to drive real-world change. Explore how sustainable investing, ESG principles and impact strategies can deliver competitive returns while supporting the transition to Net Zero by 2050. Learn to navigate shifting regulations, emerging technologies and market forces to design portfolios that balance risk, return and purpose.
How this fits your MSc journey:
Builds the expertise to integrate sustainability into investment decisions, preparing you to lead in a finance sector where ESG is a core performance driver.
Learning outcomes:
- Master ESG investing principles: Apply best practice methods to create sustainable, climate-conscious portfolios.
- Build multi-asset portfolios: Use portfolio management foundations to allocate across equities, bonds and alternative investments.
- Address real-world challenges: Tackle the complexities investors face when balancing long-term returns with ESG mandates.
- Design robust wealth strategies: Develop tailored approaches for institutional and individual clients across economic cycles.
- Mitigate investment risks: Identify and minimise execution risks while aligning strategies with climate and sustainability goals.
Treasury Management & Derivatives (10 ECTS)
Take control of financial risk and corporate funding. Learn how to manage cash, optimise capital structure and use derivatives to hedge against interest rate, currency and credit risks. Build the tools to enhance financial stability and align treasury strategy with business goals.
How this fits your MSc journey: Provides critical insights for roles in corporate finance, risk management and financial strategy across industries.
Learning outcomes:
- Lead effective treasury strategy: Understand how treasury functions support liquidity and risk control.
- Manage cash and working capital: Optimise liquidity through forecasting and planning.
- Master financial risk tools: Use forwards, futures, swaps and options to mitigate market volatility.
- Optimise capital structure: Evaluate funding options to balance risk, cost and shareholder value.
- Navigate credit ratings: Assess how ratings affect access to capital and funding costs.
Dissertation (30 ECTS)
The objective of the project is to allow students to demonstrate and apply the techniques and knowledge acquired from the taught courses to a problem of real-world academic or managerial concern. To complete this module, which is worth 30 ECTS credits and is compulsory, students should:
- demonstrate that they have a good knowledge of the relevant literature on their chosen topic
- identify an interesting question associated with that topic and analyse this question using the techniques and tools learned, showing that they have a good grasp of the applicability of these techniques (statistical, numerical or theoretical);
- present the results of their analysis in a clear and convincing manner, within the word limit of no more than 12,000 words;
- show their ability to communicate their work to a broad audience via the creation of an executive summary which should be 1500 words or less and which should be in the form of an academic article or managerial report.