Mastering fintech
Fintech is moving at a dizzying pace. A new graduate certificate empowers leaders to identify where the opportunities are – and to go after them.
“Finance is innovating all the time,” says Therese McCarthy Hockey, executive director of the banking division at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), whose many qualifications include a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University Business School (MQBS). “Being up to date – and investing in that knowledge – is key because it’s moving so fast. There has been transformational change.”
“There is so much going on in fintech right now that it’s hard to keep up,” agrees Lindesay Brine, director of the Postgraduate Applied Finance Program at MQBS. “It amounts to massive disruption that will change fundamental things, including the way businesses measure income and how they deal with cash and payments.”
To help leaders seize first-mover advantage, MQBS is introducing a new Graduate Certificate of Digital Finance in 2023. “We focus on fintech, especially innovation around payments, cryptocurrencies and blockchain,” says Brine. “Everyone’s heard a lot about it but they probably haven’t heard a lot about central bank digital currencies, for example. That’s deep in the plumbing of the financial system, which is where all the exciting innovations happen.”
The new digital finance qualification doesn’t teach you how to be a “plumber” – rather, it provides you with a strong grasp of essential knowledge so you can better direct your team to tap into the flow of opportunities. “Many people become leaders based on their expertise in a specific discipline but may not be so comfortable with the technical aspects of finance,” says Professor Yvonne Breyer, deputy dean of education and employability at MQBS. “That could mean that they miss seeing the opportunities offered by these emerging digital finance systems. The graduate certificate expands your knowledge of how digital innovations can give your business an edge.”
The primary units will be delivered online, with some hybrid classes. “That’s partly because it’s how people want to learn but also when you’re demonstrating how digital finance products work, obviously that’s all online,” says Brine.
Given the dynamic nature of fintech, the graduate certificate is cutting edge.
“We have industry practitioners leading the units. As it’s so fast-moving, students get access to the latest – we’ll bring in speakers who are in the midst of working on various aspects of fintech.”
Units from the certificate are embedded in the MQBS MBA and the Master of Applied Finance so the cohort will include students from across those courses, too. “It’s a valuable networking opportunity to learn with peers who are like-minded and who come from different organisations and industries, which is always enriching,” says Breyer.
It’s also about opening eyes – and ears
– to this new world of finance. “You can’t ‘hear’ things that don’t make sense to you. Getting the most out of the experts around you makes you a good leader but you need to have your hearing tuned to understand it. This course will calibrate your hearing so you can pick up on the golden nuggets being offered to you by the experts around you because now you’ll understand their language.”
Learn more about Macquarie University Business School and the Graduate Certificate of Digital Finance at