The School of Finance at CUFE is one of the earliest financial talents training base in China.

In 1949, the Northern China Taxation School set up a banking class, which was the first domestic training base for banking managers since the founding of the P.R. China. In 1951, Central Institute of Finance was established which simultaneously set up the Department of Finance. It was appointed as the first batch of experimental institutions in China to recruit graduate students specializing in banking and insurance in 1953 and held the first domestic financial undergraduate program in 1960.

The Central Institute of Finance and Economics became the first school that revived an undergraduate program in Finance in 1978 and started to admit Master level students specializing in Money and Banking in 1983. In 1986, the Insurance Teaching and Research Center was separated from the Department of Finance and restructured as the Department of Insurance (It was developed into the School of Insurance in 2003). In 1994, the Department of Finance established the earliest domestic Securities and Futures Institute. The Finance discipline was rated as the first batch of Key Disciplines by the Ministry of Finance in 1997. In 1998, the Central University of Finance and Economics (originally the Central Institute of Finance and Economics renamed CUFE in 1996) was authorized to confer Doctoral degrees in Finance. Based on the major of International Finance, the major of International Economics and Trade was founded in 1999. CUFE became the first batch of experimental institutions to set up the major of Financial Engineering in undergraduate education in 2001. In the same year, the subordinate discipline of Finance was recognized as a National Key Discipline by the Ministry of Education for the first time.

In 2003, the Department of Finance was reorganized and restructured as the School of Finance. In 2004, the School of Finance launched an International Academic Education Program in the major of International Economics and Trade (including International Trade and Financial Risk Management). In 2007, the discipline of Finance (including Insurance) once again passed the evaluation of National Key Disciplines successfully during the second round of Discipline Ranking by Ministry of Education in China. In the same year, the Applied Economics discipline of CUFE, covering 11 subordinate disciplines such as Finance, was recognized as a National Key Discipline by the Ministry of Education. Since then, Applied Economics at CUFE has become one of the four National Key disciplines. In 2010, the major of International Economics and Trade was separated from the School of Finance and reorganized as the School of International Economics and Trade. In the same year the School of Finance was approved to run a Professional Master’s Program specializing in Finance and started to recruit students officially a year later. In 2011, the specialty of International Currency and International Finance was established under the major of Finance. The Professional Master’s Program in Finance started to enroll students the same year. In 2012, the School of Finance set up the major of Financial Engineering independently and started recruiting Master and Doctoral students. In the third round of Discipline Ranking of the Ministry of Education in 2012, the Applied Economics of CUFE (covering Finance) ranked second in China. In 2015, the School of Finance set up the specialty of Internet Finance under the major of Finance to become the first institution which trained professionals with an undergraduate major of Internet Finance in China.

The School of Finance at CUFE is taking a new approach to promote itself as one of the world’s finest educational establishments.