Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Fintech and the future of finance
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, govcoins and the payments revolution
Technological innovation is shaking up finance. Disruptions and opportunities are rife, but how should these be understood, interpreted and responded to? Navigating this environment, with all its technical complexities, requires specialist understanding.
About the programme
Demystifying fintech, blockchain and the volatile world of cryptocurrencies, this six-week online course equips you with a future-focused view of the major issues. It is designed to give you a clear sense of where fintech is headed and provide the tools to position yourself and your organisation to benefit.
With a strong focus on nascent innovations, our course will help you sort fact from fiction. You will explore major financial trends and important—but often overlooked—developments in emerging markets. By removing jargon and technical complexity, this course will equip you with an understanding of how financial technologies work and what they can do for you.
To find out how our courses can impact your organisation with a customisable course structure tailored to your business challenges and goals, click here.
This course is as concise, insightful, and thought-provoking as The Economist's brand of journalism. The lively weekly discussions involving participants spanning the globe and facilitated by enthusiastic subject-matter experts was invaluable and provided an even more nuanced view of where the future of finance is heading.
Financial analyst
Programme modules
Appreciate the flaws and wonders of the financial system. This module explains finance’s traditional structures and examines the changing role of money. It hones in on America as a case study, and shows how the system’s weaknesses open up opportunities for fintech firms to revolutionise finance.
Learn how big tech firms and nimble startups use data and network effects to challenge the giants of finance. This module looks at the disruption that financial firms face from startups and platform firms, and how the incumbents are fighting back. It articulates how traditional flows of money between financial players create both challenges and opportunities, and casts an eye on global regulatory issues. It concludes by analysing the need to balance encouraging innovation with protecting incumbent financial firms and consumers.
Explore the origins, potential and pitfalls of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—and what regulators make of them. The module explains blockchain, elucidates the strengths and weaknesses of different cryptocurrencies and describes how traditional and new players relate to each other. It looks at what incumbents are doing to profit from crypto despite the risks, analyses the regulators’ messy response and investigates how important bitcoin is to the traditional financial system.
Understand how central banks’ responses to the end of cash could turn finance upside down. This module reviews central-bank digital currencies, sheds light on their history and considers the motivations behind them. It investigates how different types of central-bank digital currencies are used in different countries and analyses their economic, political and social ramifications. It concludes with an assignment that reflects on the potential benefits and dangers of central-bank digital currencies in a range of contexts.
Discover how Asia is leading a reinvention of finance and what it means for the world. This module analyses why emerging markets are so well-suited to fintech innovations. It evaluates Asia’s super-apps and closes with a reflection on their possible global impacts.
Discover the weird and wonderful world of decentralised finance and peer into the future of finance. This module explains “DeFi”, looks at its emergence and how it relates to cryptocurrencies. It examines current and potential applications for this new form of finance and assesses the difficulties it must overcome to fulfil its promise. The course ends by reflecting on the implications of possible future advances in fintech and taking an excursion into the future.
Programme benefits
This course is for anyone wanting to understand the impact of technology on the financial sector.
It will enable you to:
Gain an enhanced understanding of how the financial system works, why it is ripe for disruption and how to compete in this contested space
Get a holistic overview of the current and future state of the fintech industry, prepared by experts from The Economist
Examine the latest developments in fintech and their implications for both your business and personal life
Understand the threats, challenges and benefits presented by fintech innovation within and beyond the finance and technology sectors
Course leaders and contributors
Get exclusive insights from The Economist’s team of correspondents and editors, who share their expertise through specially-crafted articles, infographics, animations, videos and podcasts.
Teaching will be enriched by group discussions with students from many types of organisations. Larger class discussions will provide access to an even greater range of global viewpoints. Assignments and case studies are designed to stimulate and challenge, drawing out implications for individual organisations and roles.
The Economist’s team of journalists will share exclusive insights about fintech through articles, infographics, animations and videos.
Leading global figures also contribute to the course, bringing expert perspectives on the big issues.
Finance correspondent
London
Finance correspondent
The Economist
Business affairs editor
The Economist
General partner at Santander’s VC, Mouro Capital
CEO
Starling Bank
Professor at Cornell University and author of “The Future of Money”
President
Stripe
CEO, M-PESA Africa; chief officer financial services, Safaricom
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