Blended online course
MSc Financial Crime and Compliance in Digital Societies (top-up)
- Qualification: MSc
- Duration: 12 months, part-time
- Delivery: Online with 3 practical masterclasses (in-person or online)
- Workload: Approx 20 hours per week
- Next enrolment: September 2026
- Fees: £11,600
Introduction
Gain the digital edge
Governance, compliance and financial crime risks are evolving rapidly in the digital space. Gain the skills to combat these challenges, close digital vulnerabilities and enhance digital security and trust.
This blended, top-up MSc was developed with the ICA, ensuring you'll build on your governance, risk and compliance (GRC) and financial crime prevention expertise with the latest global standards.
Key features
Learn leading and up-to-date knowledge
Benefit from ICA's GRC expertise and the University's Department of Criminology reputation at the forefront of financial crime and fraud research.
Transform your business operations
Enhance your knowledge and turn science into practice to drive corporate strategy, policy and processes.
Build a global network
Meet your international peers, academics and subject experts at our three-day practical masterclasses.
Student video - Rachel
This course has helped me think about my work differently and has helped me to apply what I have learnt in the workplace.
Rachel
Risk Specialist, Financial Services
Developed in association with the International Compliance Association (ICA)
Benefits of our collaborative approach
- Be enriched by the joint expertise of our Department of Criminology’s leading financial crime research and ICA’s externally-verified qualifications, globally recognised as benchmarks of excellence within the industry.
- Study academic themes underpinned by real-world developments, empowering you to develop an understanding of contemporary, international frameworks and strategies.
- Boost your career by drawing on the latest specialist knowledge to sharpen your tools and open new opportunities professionally.
Key information
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Delivery
A mix of online content with three-day practical masterclasses three times a year.
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Practical masterclasses
The practical masterclasses have been designed to enrich your study experience, deepen your applied knowledge and support the networking element. Held in week four of each unit, these three-day events will give you the unique chance to engage in workshops and network with peers, academics and subject matter experts. The masterclasses will take place in Manchester, UK but will be streamed or recorded for those unable to attend.
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Duration
MSc (top-up): 12 months, part-time.
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Academic teaching start date
7 September 2026
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Application deadline
31 August 2026
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How to apply
For more information on how to apply and what documents to submit with your application, please visit our application and selection section.
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Academic team
Dr Katie Benson, Lecturer in Criminology, Course Director.
Professor Nicholas Lord, Professor of Criminology, Director of the Centre for Digital Trust and Society.
Fees and funding
Total course tuition fees for September 2026 are:
£11,600 (UK/EU/International).
The advertised fee covers your tuition. It does not cover your accommodation, travel costs or any other expenses that you may incur when attending in-person masterclasses.
We offer payment by instalments , so you can spread the cost of studying with us.
Entry requirements
If you have successfully completed the
- ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance , or
- ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance , you can apply for this course.
From September 2026, an alternative entry route is available for applicants who do not hold one of the above qualifications. Please see the Entry Requirements section for full details.
Student video - Nadim Awad
The networking part is very important to me. I am studying alongside professionals from different jurisdictions, providing me with insight into the best practice across various industries.
Nadim Awad
Senior Director, Compliance Investigations
Request information
Course overview
Who this course is for
This MSc is designed for professionals with senior management functions in business with strategic and decision-making responsibilities for GRC and financial crime risks.
In this course, you’ll benefit from The University of Manchester Department of Criminology’s leading academic work around financial crime and fraud. Delivered flexibly online, you can seamlessly integrate your learning into your life and work schedule. With three practical masterclasses per year, you’ll have the opportunity to make professional connections and get involved in interactive workshops to deliver governance and compliance best practice.
Through this course, we’ll equip you with the knowledge, expertise and skills needed to refine your own professional and scientific development. By translating ‘science into practice’, you will directly contribute to the enhancement of your business organisation, informing corporate strategies, policies and decisions in relation to governance, compliance and financial crime risks.
This course is also a stepping stone for those considering to study for a PhD.
What you will learn
- Apply core concepts, theoretical frameworks and modes of analysis related to financial crime, governance and (non)-compliance to relevant cases and workplace practice.
- Critically analyse complex compliance and financial crime risks, and the individual, organisational and structural factors that can shape them, using multi-level theoretical perspectives and modes of analysis.
- Apply a range of transferable skills, including critical thinking, effective communication, independent learning, and digital literacy.
- Evaluate the impact of emerging technologies on financial crime or compliance risks and their prevention.
- Communicate ideas and arguments effectively in different formats, adapting content, structure and style to suit different formats and objectives.
How it will benefit your career
- Apply concepts, ideas and theories related to financial crime and compliance to ‘real-world’ practical contexts related to your own workplace or sector.
- Critically assess the financial crime, compliance and security-related opportunities and risks presented by various existing and emerging digital technologies.
- Formulate original research questions and design a research project, utilising relevant theoretical and methodological frameworks.
- Design and conduct research on financial crime, compliance or governance-related issues relevant to their workplace practice.
Where and when you will study
You will study online and have the chance to attend three practical masterclasses lasting three days each. The masterclasses and workshops will be streamed or recorded for those unable to attend.
Online learning materials will consist of a mixture of video and audio files alongside written text and instructions accompanied by interactive engagement activities and tasks.
Enjoy the freedom to study flexibly and at your own pace. There are three units that last 10 weeks each and 20 weeks for the dissertation.
Course units
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Unit 1 - Compliance and Financial Crime Risks – Analysis and Explanation (20 credits)
Learn about theories of compliance and regulation that can be applied to understand risks (what, why and how), victimisation (patterns and trends), and enforcement and governance (risk assessment vs. crime control vs. regulation vs. social justice).
The unit will provide you with a multi-layered, multi-level theoretical toolkit that can be used to understand:
- individual motivations and propensities for engaging in risky practices,
- how company cultures, structures and policies can inadvertently provide the opportunity, means, setting and rationale for problematic behaviour,
- how wider political-economic environments feed into individual decisions to engage in behaviours bad for business.
You will learn how to critically assess which theoretical perspectives provide the most plausible explanations for different risks within the business, both old and emerging. This high-level theoretical framing will provide you with the knowledge that can be integrated into business policy and practice with a view to reducing, preventing and responding to internal and external threats.
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Unit 2 - Digital Technologies, Financial Crimes and Compliance (20 credits)
This unit provides advanced insights into issues that arise in business in relation to digital trust, digital security and digital vulnerabilities, with a particular focus on financial crime and compliance risks.
Gain research-led insights into digital vulnerabilities such as processes of misinformation and disinformation in an era of ‘fake news’ and the implications of this for business, the need to ensure workplace cyber/data-security with a view to protecting customer, client and other business sensitive data from breaches, as well as individual security of employees and the potential vulnerabilities that arise at the intersection of human and technical interdependencies, and new and emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies, FinTech and distributed ledger technologies that generate specific governance, compliance and financial crime risks and solutions. The unit also includes specific focus on cyber-enabled, dependent and/or assisted financial crime risks, such as money laundering, illicit finance, corruption, and more.
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Unit 3 - Data, Evidence and Intelligence on Financial Crime and Compliance (20 credits)
Learn about the processes, approaches, challenges and ethical considerations that underpin the production of evidence and intelligence on financial crime and compliance.
In addition, the unit teaches you methods for evaluating whether policies on financial crime and compliance actually ‘work’ in practice, what the impacts of any given policy are, and how they can ascertain whether such insights are robust and reliable (i.e., evidence-based policies vs. policy-based evidence). Your organisations will benefit from having senior managers with knowledge and expertise to ensure company policies and strategies are problem-oriented, evidence-based and evaluated over time to ensure optimum efficiency and impact.
Those with senior management functions will benefit from learning how to ‘make sense’ of social scientific data and evidence, and to be critical in how you scrutinise research findings before evaluating whether you can form the basis of business strategies or feed into their decision-making responsibilities. In these terms, you will learn about the process of undertaking systematic and rigorous research that will enable you to design and direct the creation of evidence and intelligence for your business, as well as to interpret and assess the research findings of academics, NGOs and other social research outputs that may be of use to your business strategies and policies. This unit enables you to bridge the gap between practice and science, providing you with the concepts, knowledge and ideas for interacting with statistics and research findings in the area of governance, compliance and financial crime. In addition, you will systematically acquire and understand a substantial body of knowledge which is at the forefront of an academic discipline or area of professional practice.
The unit will provide the foundation for undertaking or understanding original empirical research (using quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies) that can form the basis for undertaking future independent research projects within your organisation. Such knowledge might also be useful for those looking to undertake a more advanced research degree (e.g., PhD).
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Project (60 credits)
The MSc Financial Crime and Compliance in Digital Societies course has a mandatory dissertation component made up of two optional pathways. You can indicate which dissertation option you’d like to select during your Unit 3 studies.
Option A - Long Dissertation:
If you would like to take a more traditional route, you can choose to conduct original empirical research and submit a 10,000 – 12,000-word long dissertation.
You can use the research proposal that you develop in Unit 3 for the dissertation. When working on your dissertation, you will benefit from one-to-one supervision from an appropriate academic. This option requires approval from the Programme Director.
Option B - Short Dissertation:
You can also choose to submit a 6,000 – 8,000-word short dissertation. This option is similar to an extended essay and does not require any original empirical research. In this short dissertation, you can explore a particular issue in detail through a literature review and present your findings.
In addition, to the short dissertation, if you choose option B, you must also complete 2 x Research Skills in Practice topics on:
- Critical Appraisal of the Literature
- Your Responsibilities as a Researcher
These units will be available from your Virtual Learning Platform once you enrol. These shorter topics supplement the short dissertation and take place over 4 weeks.
Course structure
This part-time, blended, top-up course is specifically designed for working professionals in the financial crime, governance and compliance fields keen to complete a practical course that will aid career development.
The flexibility of this course allows you to gain valuable insight into the real-world applications of your learning as you continue to work.
You take the units in a predetermined order at your own pace, tailoring the course to your interests and commitments. You can only complete one unit (10 weeks each and 20 weeks for the dissertation) at a time.
You will study the course material entirely online whilst benefiting from professional and academic support, plus the opportunity to network and exchange ideas with your international peers.
There are also three practical masterclasses held each year to reinforce the topics covered and further support your development. Two of these sessions are held in Manchester on the University campus (hybrid option available) and the third is held fully online.
You will enjoy a richer experience by seamlessly integrating work with study, and gain the unique opportunity to enhance your organisation with the latest best practice.
Course learning aims
By the end of the programme, you will achieve the following learning outcomes:
- Apply core concepts, theoretical frameworks and modes of analysis related to financial crime, governance and (non-)compliance to relevant cases and workplace practice.
- Critically analyse complex compliance and financial crime risks, and the individual, organisational and structural factors that can shape them, using multi-level theoretical perspectives and modes of analysis.
- Apply concepts, ideas and theories related to financial crime and compliance to ‘real-world’ practical contexts related to their own workplaces or sectors.
- Apply a range of transferable skills, including critical thinking, effective communication, independent learning, and digital literacy.
- Critically assess the financial crime, compliance and security-related opportunities and risks presented by various existing and emerging digital technologies.
- Communicate ideas and arguments effectively in different formats, adapting content, structure and style to suit different formats and objectives.
- Design and conduct research on financial crime, compliance or governance-related issues relevant to their workplace practice. Explain the processes, approaches, challenges and ethical considerations that underpin the production of data, evidence and intelligence on financial crime and compliance.
- Develop advanced skills for formulating original research questions and design a research project, utilising relevant theoretical and methodological frameworks.
Teaching and learning
This is a blended learning course with three practical masterclasses per year. The taught units are delivered via a virtual learning environment (VLE) where you can access all course materials, online reading lists, podcasts, and the University's extensive online library. You will receive an induction to the virtual learning environment at the start of your course.
The course material is highly engaging and includes video content, audio files and textual materials. You can also use the virtual learning environment to discuss issues raised in the course materials with your course tutor and fellow students. Throughout your studies, you will receive consistent support from a dedicated Student Support Advisor and the Manchester Academic Team.
Each course unit complements others, reinforcing key ideas and issues whilst introducing new materials. The teaching material is designed with working professionals in mind and will enable you to complete the programme part-time alongside your employment. You will be able to work at your own pace as you engage with the unit content.
The three practical masterclasses will take place in week four of each unit and will offer interactive, practical, case study based workshop activities. The sessions will also involve unique masterclasses from subject matter experts on related and topical issues. Attendance in-person is highly recommended but if you are unable to join us in Manchester, UK you can join the workshops and masterclasses online.
Online learning FAQs
Find the answers to our frequently asked questions about studying online.
Coursework and assessment
The assessments involve a mixture of written coursework (e.g., short essays or reflective contributions), recorded presentations (e.g., using PowerPoint), and online tasks (i.e., quizzes, short reflections and analyses on the content of the weekly session).
Feedback on formative and summative assessments will be provided in written form with optional one-to-one meetings with the teaching staff.
The project is flexible, allowing you to choose between two 60-credit dissertation options. You can indicate which dissertation option you'd like to select during your Unit 3 studies.
- Option A - long dissertation (10,000-12,000-word independent thesis)
- Option B - short dissertation (6,000-8,000-word thesis alongside two short modules on Research Skills in Practice, available via the online learning environment)
You will be allocated supervisors for your dissertation projects and will have an opportunity to have at least two one-to-one meetings.
Admissions information
From your initial expression of interest right through to graduation, you’ll receive all the support you need. We can support you with enrolment and subject assistance, administrative logistics and fee options, online learning skills, workload management and special circumstances.
Entry requirements
Academic entry qualification overview
From September 2026, there will be two routes for admission to this programme. The first route is the route that has been in place since the programme started. The second is an alternative route that was approved in January 2026.
If you have successfully completed the ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance or ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance , you can apply for this course.
If you are interested in studying with the ICA, you can get in touch with them directly by emailing: courseenquiries @int-comp.org
If you do not hold one of the above qualifications, you may be able to apply for a place on the programme based on your professional experience. Applying via this route requires the following:
- An Upper Second (2:1) class honours degree, or the overseas equivalent in a relevant discipline, such as law, finance, accounting, criminology or business administration.
- At least 10 years of relevant work experience in governance, risk or compliance, for example, but not limited to, financial crime compliance (including anti-money laundering (AML).
- At least 3 years of experience in management/leadership roles in governance, risk or compliance, for example, but not limited to, financial crime compliance (including anti-money laundering (AML). Applicants should currently be in a senior management/leadership position, with responsibility for leading teams or business units, strategic planning, implementing compliance programmes, managing compliance frameworks, and/or board engagement or reporting.
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Evidence of a range of professional knowledge, skills and competencies which will be assessed through submission of a portfolio containing:
- 1,500-word essay
- 2,000-word written statement
- 2-page CV
- 2 x professional references
Further details on the content of the portfolio can be obtained by contacting: studyonline@manchester.ac.uk
English language
If you have successfully completed the ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance or ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance , you will be exempt from submitting further evidence of English language proficiency.
If you do not hold one of the above qualifications and you are not from, or did not graduate from a majority English speaking country , we will also require proof of your English language ability. If you have already taken an English language qualification, please include your certificate with your application.
- IELTS Academic: Minimum overall score of 6.5, with at least 6.0 in the individual components or equivalent. Discover more aboutEnglish language requirements.
English language test validity
Application and selection
How to apply
The deadline for applications is 31 August 2026.
Apply now to secure your place.
Advice to applicants
For ICA graduates , to help speed up the application process, please submit the following documents with your online application form:
- Copies of official ICA Professional Postgraduate Diploma certificates (see the Entry Requirements section for details of qualifying courses), showing the subjects taken and grades obtained.
- Referee details. As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide contact details for one referee (professional or academic). The University will contact your referee directly after you submit your application and ask them to complete our online reference form.
For non-standard applications , please see the Entry Requirements section of the course webpage for full details of the documents you will need to submit as part of your application.
If you need any support with your application, please contact us at studyonline@manchester.ac.uk .
Scholarships and bursaries
If you're an English or EU student living in the UK, you may be eligible for a loan.
Manchester Master's Bursary (UK)
We're committed to helping students access further education.
Manchester Alumni Scholarship Schemes
If you completed your degree at Manchester, you could receive a discount.
Funding for students with disabilities
If you have a disability, we can help you apply for relevant funding.
Fees and funding
Total course tuition fees for September 2026 are:
MSc £11,600 (UK/EU/International).
Please note the tuition fees are subject to an incremental rise in September.
The advertised fee covers your tuition. It does not cover your accommodation, travel costs or any other expenses that you may incur when attending in-person masterclasses.
Employer funding
If you are looking to secure funding from your employer, we can help you build a business case or talk to your employer directly. Contact us on studyonline@manchester.ac.uk to arrange a consultation.
Payment by instalments
During registration you will have the opportunity to pay your fees in three equal instalments. Learn more .
Additional cost information
Additional expenses
The advertised fee covers your tuition. It does not cover your accommodation, travel costs or any other expenses that you may incur when attending face-to-face conferences/workshops/masterclasses/field trips.
Two of three weekend Masterclasses are held on the University campus (hybrid option available; third is held fully online). Students attending in person would need to pay for travel to/accommodation in Manchester (UK/international travel).
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Regulated by the Office for Students
The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website.
You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website.