The Academic Master of Finance is a postgraduate program aimed at cultivating talent in the academic research of finance.  

The CUFE’s School of Finance is one of the first to recruit Finance postgraduates following the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. As early as in 1953, when the state piloted postgraduate education, CUFE’s then Department of Finance was among the first pilot units to admit postgraduates in Banking and Insurance. After the Chinese economic reform, the University’s Finance discipline resumed the recruitment of postgraduates in 1983. On January 13 the following year, China’s State Council Academic Degrees Committee released the list for the second batch of authorized courses and majors of doctoral and master’s degrees, among them was the Master of Money and Banking of the School.  

After the Finance discipline to which the School belongs was selected as one of the National Key Disciplines in 2001, the School’s postgraduate education has also entered a whole-new stage of development. Led by Professor Wang Guangqian, a teaching and scientific-research team was slowly taking shape for the discipline while the research directions continued to expand. Against the background of the continuous reform and development of China’s financial system, the research field has evolved from previously focusing solely on macro finance to placing equal emphasis on macro and micro finance. The curriculum of the School’s postgraduate programs has also become increasingly diverse. In addition to the conventional Money and Banking (Finance major), Finance was introduced to International Finance and Securities Investment. In 2010, Financial Engineering was independently set up, and Fintech was introduced in 2019. In addition, the School launched Postgraduate Finance programs for exchange students in 2014, with lectures given and thesis written in English. The postgraduate programs continue to improve, and their quality is becoming widely recognized socially.

Currently, the Academic Master’s programs of the School offer three majors, namely Finance, Financial Engineering and Fintech, with courses such as Finance Theories and Policies, International Finance and Financial Organization Research, Microeconomics Theories and Practice, Financial History, Corporate Finance and Behavioral Finance, Financial Risk Management, Financial Asset Pricing, Fintech Innovation, Fintech Supervision and Supervision Technology, Big Data and Smart Finance, Blockchains and Digital Cryptocurrencies, etc. The courses are divided into compulsory and elective: the former emphasize a solid professional foundation, whereas the latter focus on the personalized development of talent in response to the changing demands of the economic and financial environments at home and abroad, including fintech, quantitative investment, big data and Internet finance.  

The Academic Master’s programs last three years and lead to a Master’s Degree in Economics.