Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £31,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

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).

Scholarships/sponsorships

The  Manchester Bursary  is available to UK students registered on an undergraduate degree course at Alliance MBS who have had a full financial assessment carried out by Student Finance England.

In addition, Alliance MBS will award a range of  Social Responsibility Scholarships  to UK and international/EU students.

These awards are worth £2,000 per year across three years of study.

You must achieve AAA at A-level (or equivalent qualification) and be able to demonstrate a significant contribution and commitment to social responsibility.

The School will also award a number of  International Stellar Scholarships  to international students achieving AAA at A-level (or equivalent qualification). Applicants who exceed AAA and/or have supplementary qualifications (such as EPQ) will receive additional consideration.

Additional eligibility criteria apply - please see our  scholarship pages  for full details.

Course unit details:
FinTech Revolution: The Digital Transformation of Financial Services

Course unit fact file
Unit code BMAN32272
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 3
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

The course covers various topics around the phenomenon of Fintech revolution including the digital transformation, innovation, and regulation in the banking and financial services industry. The course will cover various tools and technologies, stakeholders (Startups, incumbent banks, big tech firms, and regulators) and their interactions, the processes of digital innovation and transformation at organizational level, and regulatory implications of the fundamental changes in this industry. The course will mainly draw on the literatures in information systems, organizational theory and strategy disciplines. The course unit is being proposed for the 2nd or 3rd year undergraduate programmes because the students would already have gained a basic understanding of the foundational courses by then. The course unit is primarily proposed for BSc – ITMB, BSc – Management and BSc-International Management. The course unit can also be opened to BSc-IBFE and BSc-Accounting programmes should there be an interest. 

Pre/co-requisites

Academic programmes that course is available to:
•    Primarily BSc-ITMB, BSc-Management, BSc-International Management programmes as an elective
•    Additionally can also be offered to BSc-Accounting and BSC-IBFE programmes should there be interest

Aims

The aim of this course is to provide students with a preliminary understanding of emerging trends in the FinTech space. In particular, the course will help students develop theoretical and practical understanding of how the banking and financial services industry is being digitally transformed by various digital and data-driven innovations. The module will cover some dynamics at the ecosystem level as well as some dynamics of organizations’ internal transformation and thereby examining the changing nature of work. Key focus will be on helping students envision various practical scenarios from which they can learn from and in which they can apply their theoretical, analytical, and practical skills. The course will also include discussion of relevant case studies of documenting journeys of various stakeholders (banks, FinTech startups, cryptocurrency exchanges, regulators) in the FinTech revolution, the challenges they face, and strategies they employ to address those challenges.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course unit, student should be able to:
•    Understand the fundamental forces behind FinTech revolution.
•    Understand the FinTech ecosystem, the key players in the ecosystem, and their business models. 
•    Understand the implications of variety of digital technologies and tools in facilitating transformative change and powering digital business strategy of various stakeholders. 
•    Discuss the role of regulators as a key stakeholder in the FinTech space. Appreciate the regulatory frameworks (e.g. Open Banking) and their implications for competition and innovation in FinTech landscape. 
•    Appreciate the changing nature of work for various financial and non-financial professions in the FinTech space. 
•    Develop an understanding and working knowledge of Decentralized Finance and NFTs.
•    Develop an understanding and working knowledge of Central Bank Digital Currencies and Stable Coins.
•    Demonstrate the ability to analyse case studies, offer their perspectives by taking into account the views of their team members, identify the black, white, or grey areas of the issues, and offer recommendations for the case study organizations. 
•    Improve teamwork and collaboration skills from group project.

Syllabus

Week 1    
Lecture    
Introduction: The Basics of Money, Banking, Digitization, and FinTech    
•    Gomber et al. (2018)
•    Wang & Huang (2018)
Tutorial    
Case study: Cutting through the Fog: Finding a Future with Fintech

Week 2    
Lecture    
FinTech Revolution: Digital Transformation of Financial Services (overview of various financial services), FinTech Ecosystem and Stakeholders (Incumbent Banks and other Traditional Firms, Startups and Challenger Banks, High Tech Firms, Regulators, Accelerators)    
•    Dhar & Stein (2017) 
•    Lee & Shin (2018)
•    Muthukannan et al. (2020)
Tutorial    
Case study: Fintech: Ecosystem, Business Models, Investment Decisions, and Challenges

Week 3    
Lecture    
Data Science, Financial Performance Analytics and Marketing Analytics    
•    Joshi et al. (2021)
Tutorial    
Case study: Dark Side of Customer Analytics

Week 4    
Lecture    
Text Analytics in FinTech     
•    Jung et al. (2018)
•    Ge et al. (2017)
Tutorial    
Case study: YOB Bank: Application of Text Analytics in a Retail Bank

Week 5    
Lecture    
Incumbent Banks and Transformation of their Business Models: Innovation Labs, Open Innovation, Data-Driven Business Models    
•    Sia et al. (2016)
Tutorial    
Case study: CIBC: Internalizing Open Innovation

Week 6    
Lecture    
FinTech and Changing Nature of Work: From Bankers to Coders?    
•    Marshall (2019)
Tutorial    
Case study: Transferring Traditional Banking Skills to the Brave New World

Week 7    
Lecture    
Decentralize Finance Primitives    
•    Campbell et al. (2021) 
Tutorial
Deep dive into Custody, Incentives, Supply adjustments and risks of digital assets: Campbell et al. (2021) 

Week 8    
Lecture    
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)    
•    Kaczynski & Kominers (2021)
Tutorial    
Case study    
•    Bored Ape Yacht Club case study

Week 9    
Lecture    
Decentralized Finance (Decentralized Exchanges, Lending & Borrowing)      
•    Campbell et al. (2021) 
Tutorial    
Deep Dive into Decentralized Exchange: Uniswap (2022)

Week 10    
Lecture    
Central Bank Digital Currencies and Stable Coins    
•    Davoodalhosseini et al. (2020)
Tutor

Teaching and learning methods

Lecture Hours
22 hours (2 hours lecture per week, over 11 weeks, plus additional drop-in sessions)

Seminar/Tutorial/Workshop/Lab Hours
11 hours (1 hour tutorial session per week, over 11 weeks)

Total: 33 hours

Employability skills

Other
Students joining a retail organization, will still need to understand how the payments are being routed through the mobile wallets and how those data can be utilized in offering better products to the customers. Moreover, students joining firms in crypto space will need a deep understanding of how value is transferred in the decentralized ecosystem. This module will equip the students with preliminary understanding of the current state of the innovations in this space.

Assessment methods

Group Project Coursework and Peer Assessment (60%) - 2000 words group report, students might be asked to present their approach for feedback before writing full report 
Individual Project Coursework (40%) 1000 words

Feedback methods

Written, verbally during class and via Blackboard.

Recommended reading

Reference books:
•    Harvey, Campbell R., Ashwin Ramachandran, and Joey Santoro. DeFi and the Future of Finance. John Wiley & Sons, 2021.
•    King, B. Breaking banks: The innovators, rogues, and strategists rebooting banking. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
•    Schar, Fabian, and Aleksander Berentsen. Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptoassets: A Comprehensive Introduction. MIT press, 2020. 
•    Susanne Chishti, Tony Craddock, Robert Courtneidge, Markos Zachariadis (eds.) (2020). The Paytech Book : the Payment Technology Handbook for Investors, Entrepreneurs and Fintech Visionaries, Chichester, West Sussex ; Wiley, 2020.
Case Studies:
•    As indicated in the Syllabus above. 
Journal articles: 
•    Alfaro, E., Bressan, M., Girardin, F., Murillo, J., Someh, I., & Wixom, B. (2019). BBVA’s Data Monetization Journey. MIS Quarterly Executive, 18(2).
•    Davoodalhosseini, M., Rivadeneyra, F., & Zhu, Y. (2020). CBDC and monetary policy (No. 2020-4). Bank of Canada.
•    Dhar, V., & Stein, R. M. (2017). FinTech platforms and strategy. Communications of the ACM, 60(10), 32-35.
•    Dodgson, M., Gann, D., Wladawsky-Berger, I., Sultan, N., & George, G. (2015). Managing Digital Money. Academy of Management Journal, 58(2), 325–333. 
•    Faccia, A., Moşteanu, N. R., Cavaliere, L. P. L., & Mataruna-Dos-Santos, L. J. (2020, September). Electronic money laundering, the dark side of fintech: An overview of the most recent cases. In Proceedings of the 2020 12th International Conference on Information Management and Engineering (pp. 29-34).
•    Ge, R., Feng, J., Gu, B., & Zhang, P. (2017). Predicting and Deterring Default with Social Media Information in Peer-to-Peer Lending. Journal of Management Information Systems, 34(2), 401–424.
•    Gomber, P., Kauffman, R. J., Parker, C., & Weber, B. W. (2018). On the Fintech Revolution: Interpreting the Forces of Innovation, Disruption, and Transformation in Financial Services. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(1), 220–265. 
•    Hachem, Kinda Cheryl, The Economics of Cryptocurrency. Darden Case No. UVA-GEM-0190, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3942633
•    Joshi, M.P., Su, N., Austin, R.D., & Sundaram, A.K. (2021), Why So Many Data Science Projects Fail to Deliver, MIT Sloan Management Review,  62(3).
•    Jung, D., Dorner, V., Glaser, F., & Morana, S. (2018). Robo-Advisory—Digitalization and Automation of Financial Advisory. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 60(1), 81–86.
•    Kaczynski, S., & Duke Kominers, S. (2021). How NFTs Create Value. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 1–11.
•    Lee, I., & Shin, Y. J. (2018). Fintech: Ecosystem, business models, investment decisions, and challenges. Business horizons, 61(1), 35-46.
•    Marshall, C.(2019). Practical FinTech for Financial Professionals.
•    Muthukannan, P., Tan, B., Gozman, D., & Johnson, L. (2020). The emergence of a fintech ecosystem: A case study of the Vizag Fintech Valley in India. Information & Management, 57(8), 103385.
•    Sia, S. K., Soh, C., & Weill, P. (2016). How DBS Bank Pursued a Digital Business Strategy. MIS Quarterly Executive, 15(2).
•    Schär, F. (2021). Decentralized finance: On blockchain-and smart contract-based financial markets. FRB of St. Louis Review.
•    Uniswap (2022) docs.uniswap.or

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Markos Zachariadis Unit coordinator
Aseem Pahuja Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Academic programmes that course is available to:
•    Primarily BSc-ITMB, BSc-Management, BSc-International Management programmes as an elective
•    Additionally can also be offered to BSc-Accounting and BSC-IBFE programmes should there be interest

 

For Academic Year 2024/25

Updated: March 2024

Approved by: March UG Committee

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