This course is taught in 2 parts. Part 1 (Compliance and Ethics) covers rules and regulations in wealth management as well as ethical conduct. Students will also learn the tools for investment management, namely Bloomberg. They are required to complete the certification test from this service provider. Part 2 (Leadership) extends from the topics taught on ethical conduct in Part 1 to include effective ethical leadership skills in an increasingly uncertain and challenging environment. This part also seeks to train emerging managers and leaders.

The digitalization of financial services is transforming asset and wealth management at an unprecedented pace. It is critical that asset and wealth managers are trained to know their impacts and potential developments to be appropriately future-ready. This course will provide you with an understanding of the importance of having a digital mindset in a fast changing technological landscape. It will trace the evolution of financial technology in the global financial market and how institutions and regulators are adjusting to this disruptive force. These new technologies come with new threats, requiring a good understanding of cybersecurity, digital hygiene and integrity, and best practices in digital risk management.

Building upon the Data-Science and FinTech I course, Data-Science and Fintech II provides a deeper treatment in digital skills and data science in the asset and wealth management sector. This course aims to provide you with the skills to use digital tools to raise their effectiveness in engaging with clients and understanding market trends. You will learn how to use digital tools (within organization guidelines) to create better customer engagements, as well as leverage data analytics and unconventional data to gain better insights into individual client preference and trends in the market. You will also learn about emerging and evolving technologies such as those in advisory, KYC/AML/CFT and mining for unconventional data.

This course is taught in 2 parts.

Part 1 (Investment Products) introduces various investment products and their associated risks. It also provides a framework for deploying them over an investment cycle.

Part 2 (Investment Advisory) covers the roles and obligations of an investment advisor and the process for providing investment advisory. The process starts with knowing the roles and obligations of an investment advisor, the client’s risk profile, needs and product suitability. This is followed by designing the investment solution based on the investment policy statement, managing, reviewing and monitoring the portfolios.

This course relies heavily on scenario simulations for a more applied approach to the subject matter.

Wealth Planning is an important element of providing holistic wealth management advice to clients. Each life stage of a client presents unique challenges and opportunities. Understanding this is key to designing wealth planning solutions which incorporate the client’s needs and values. You will learn how to engage clients and their families to help them achieve their long term objectives of wealth preservation, inter-generational wealth transfer and succession planning. You will be taught how to identify your client’s latent wealth planning needs and to develop solutions through an in-depth coverage of topics such as inter-vivos gifts, wills, companies, trusts and foundations. Whatever the wealth planning solution, you will gain relevant and practical insights on how you can be better positioned and differentiated from the competition, by adopting a more holistic approach to your clients’ needs.

It is critical for portfolio managers to have a firm understanding of the fundamental underpinnings of portfolio management in order to make sense of the results that are now so often generated by a machine. This course takes you through the fundamental building blocks of portfolio management. It starts with introducing the modern portfolio theory followed by an examination of its shortcomings and the various augmentations that followed.

Managing the reserves of different institutions requires the knowledge of institution specific constraints and their impacts on the investment process. While investment analysis and management is a common technique, its application to the management of assets for institutional asset owners can be much more complicated. Each type of asset owner – endowments, insurance companies, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds – has its own constraints, which need to be catered for in managing reserves. In this course, you will learn how to deal with the practical aspects of managing assets for institutional asset owners.

Technology and big data are changing the way portfolios are managed. You will acquire the skills to use various tools to analyze data that are pertinent to understanding the market and trading. Taught at Imperial College Business School in London over 5 days, topics include time series predictability in equity and fixed income markets, cross-sectional predictability of equity return, and risk modelling.

Alternative investments play an important diversification role in a portfolio as well as a hedge and a source of potential market outperformance. Taught at New York University’s Stern Business School, this course aims to provide you with a deep understanding of the alternative investment space building on the knowledge you will have acquired on conventional investment products in earlier courses. Topics include hedge funds, private equity, commodities, real estate, and art investment.

A corporate’s financial statement provides important operating data and performance of the company. Financial statement analysis helps investors, regulators, analysts and senior management evaluate the financial health of a company. It is the critical first step in understanding a corporation’s financial standing. The Financial Statement Analysis course provides a framework and a process for evaluating and interpreting financial data, along with other pertinent information, in order to formulate an assessment of a company’s present and future financial condition and performance. The objective of this course is to provide you with the technical and analytical proficiencies for analyzing financial statements for investments, credit and other business decisions.

The first part of the course deals with fundamental issues in corporate finance, including corporate governance, capital structure and dividend policy. The second part covers valuation issues in capital budgeting, merger and acquisition, initial public offering, corporate restructuring, and the need for risk management. The course relies heavily on case studies.

Equity and fixed income are the two most prevalent securities for investors. Having a good knowledge of the framework for valuing them is critical for any investment decision. This course provides you with a blend of theory and practice to analyze equity and fixed income securities. Equity analysis includes various models used for absolute valuation and the principles of relative valuation. Fixed income topics include credit analysis models, yield curve analytics, valuation and determinants of bond price volatility. There will be a strong emphasis on applications through the use of financial platforms Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg.

This course is taught in 2 parts.

Part 1 (Macroeconomics) provides a framework for analyzing the global economy and policies that impact global financial markets. Specifically, major growth drivers for an economy and how monetary policies affect spending and investment decisions. It will also analyze the tools used by different central banks when implementing monetary policy.

Part 2 (Cycles, Crises and Bubbles) provides an analysis of the major frenzies and crashes in the post-war global financial system: Why they happened, policy responses, and why they happened again. It provides a top level understanding of the rhythm of global financial crises. This is followed by analysing conventional and unconventional indicators to spot warning signs of frenzies and crashes.

The efficient market hypothesis in traditional finance often fails to explain how investors make their decisions and why the market sometimes goes through huge swings. Behavioural finance helps to fill these gaps. It is important for wealth and asset managers to understand and apply these behavioural biases in their investment decisions. This course aims to provide an understanding of how behavior biases affect advisor-client interaction, portfolio construction, analyst forecasts and market behaviour. You will first learn the differences between traditional and behavioural finance. This is then followed by an analysis of cognitive and emotional biases and their consequences.

A High Net Worth Individuals have investments and assets across multiple locations and jurisdictions and have generational transfer needs. Having an international perspective on wealth planning together with a good understanding of family office and business succession is an important element of providing holistic wealth management advice to clients This course extends from the earlier course on Wealth Planning to include international tax concepts for wealth planners, family offices and business succession. You will learn how to engage clients and their families to help them achieve their long term objectives of wealth preservation, inter-generational wealth transfer and succession planning.

The ability to interact with a client, understand their needs, and have a long lasting relationship is critical to being a successful wealth manager. This course covers the critical skills you will require to acquire and build sustainable relationships. It is designed with the objective of achieving a clear understanding of what constitutes a successful client management strategy. The use of role plays and class simulations will be incorporated into the session to provide you with opportunities to practice what you have learnt. Topics include a framework for establishing rapport and techniques for enhancing trust with clients, proven techniques for more effective negotiations, strategies to managing the pipeline, identifying opportunities and expanding connections. The course also covers understanding client segmentation, adopting an entrepreneurial approach to building a client book and how to leverage on internal resources to help your clients.

Having a good understanding of common cross banking needs and how to engage specialists to develop suitable solutions is paramount to deepening client relationships. Cross banking allows for a more holistic approach to serving clients’ needs. You will learn about the common cross banking needs of high-net worth clients and understand the framework for identifying these needs, developing solutions for them and managing their associated risks.

This course builds on the fundamental understanding of Portfolio Management (WM6103) through the extensive use Microsoft Excel to solve problems faced by portfolio managers. Candidates will learn how to design and develop financial models to solve complex financial problems.

This course also builds on the core course on Quantitative Trading Strategies (WM6011) by further developing quantitative skills for investment. Topics covered include data mining to mitigate hidden biases; statistical validation techniques such as back-testing and Monte Carlo analysis. These skills are applied in benchmarking, attribution and performance analysis, and leverage analysis

This course provides an introduction to the functions supporting asset management organizations. Apart from actual investment analysis and portfolio management, the backbone of an asset management organization is investment operations and marketing of investment products. You will learn about the basic processes of settlement and reconciliation, fund administration, legal structures of funds in various countries, and fund passporting schemes. For marketing, the course details the concept of product specialists, due diligence and marketing of fund products.

Full-Time students will be required to fulfil either a minimum three month internship

Part-Time Students will be required to undertake an industry project.