🔒CT colleges launch fintech programs as industry blossoms

Technology is becoming increasingly important to the finance world, and higher education institutions in Connecticut are responding by adopting financial technology, or fintech courses and degrees.

Next spring UConn will launch its first-ever fintech program, a master’s degree that will teach students new technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies, alongside concepts more traditional in finance like predictive modeling. The program will be offered at UConn’s Hartford campus.

UConn’s forthcoming fintech degree, and financial technology courses offered at other Connecticut colleges like Sacred Heart University, come as experts predict the field will grow substantially in coming years. A 2019 PwC survey found 75% of financial services companies are creating jobs related to fintech, and 42% of those companies are having trouble filling the positions. Additionally, employers say training in fintech would give graduates a leg up when applying for jobs.

The launch of UConn’s degree program also comes as Greater Hartford looks to attract new fintechs and support existing successful companies like Cromwell-based Payveris and Glastonbury’s Payrailz, which both offer digital banking technologies.

“Fintech is really a new way of thinking,” said John Wilson, a UConn professor and academic director of the fintech program. “What companies have said time and time again is they’re seeking students who maybe don’t know coding, but think like coders.”

Students who enroll in UConn’s 36-credit fintech master’s program will take core courses on technological concepts like coding and distributive computing, alongside business courses on topics like contract theory and crowdfunding, Wilson said.

In addition to 21 core credits, students will take 15 elective credits.

The program could appeal to students moving to a postgraduate degree immediately after completing their bachelor’s, or for people already in the workforce looking to break into the fintech field, Wilson said. Among recent grads, he’s mainly trying to draw from economics and actuarial and computer science majors.

Prospective fintech careers range from performing artificial intelligence-enabled analytics for large companies to working on an electronic payment system for a small startup. Wilson is currently talking to major insurers in Hartford as well as local startup accelerators like Launc[H]artford about partnering with UConn for internships, job shadows and other efforts that would offer students real-world experience.

Partnering with startups in accelerators could prove especially exciting, Wilson said, because it gels with the state’s efforts in recent years to bring startups to Connecticut.

“Things like Launc[H]artford and Upward Hartford, … we’re all moving toward the same goals,” Wilson said. “The thing that will be critical is bringing all these forces together… so that we’re truly complementing each other.”

Other fintech programs

Creating a more cohesive ecosystem between the private sector and colleges has been effective for students elsewhere, like Brandeis University in Massachusetts, which launched the U.S.’ first fintech master’s degree program about two years ago.

Brandeis’ 30-credit digital innovation fintech program includes required courses like launching fintech ventures and the evolution of technology for financial services, and electives like digital product development and strategic planning. Early on, Brandeis partnered with Boston-based accelerator MassChallenge, said Debarshi Nandy, a global finance professor who oversees the program.

Students in Brandeis’ program have worked on projects with companies at MassChallenge, and other accelerators. Some were hired for jobs through connections they made, Nandy said. For example, Hartford insurtech and data analytics startup Pentation Analytics hired one of Nandy’s students after working on a project.

“We have several fintech startups where our students have gone from the field project to an internship to a job,” Nandy said.

Other Connecticut schools are getting more serious about fintech as well. Fairfield’s Sacred Heart University currently offers one undergraduate and two graduate fintech courses, and professor Khawaja Mamun, who is the associate dean of the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology, is working on a graduate certificate program that could go live as soon as next fall.

Sacred Heart’s business school offers fintech courses that focus more on how to apply technology to traditional jobs in the finance industry, as opposed to emphasizing startups and disruption, Mamun said.

“The traditional finance jobs now require more technological skills,” Mamun said.

Some Connecticut employers, including startups and large corporations, have expressed enthusiasm about more colleges offering fintech programs.

Nassau Financial Group Chief Marketing Officer Paul Tyler said he’s been in talks with Wilson at UConn about getting fintech students working with companies at the two-year-old Nassau Re/Imagine accelerator in downtown Hartford. The accelerator provides startups in the life insurance, annuity and reinsurance industries with free work space and legal, human resources and business-development services.

Tyler said large and small companies in Greater Hartford will benefit if more local job applicants have expertise in fintech, he said.

“It’s going to be good for us, it’s going to be good for a lot of companies,” Tyler said. “We think it’s great in terms of building a strong economic cluster in the area.”

Michael Kalen, CEO of Hartford-based digital life insurance software maker Covr Financial Technologies, has taught a UConn course on insurtech — related to, but separate from fintech — for three years. As a professor who teaches students, and an employer whose company hires recent graduates for some positions, Kalen said he sees pupils who enroll in specialized programs for fields like fintech or insurtech getting a leg up in their job searches.

“Being able to understand how the disruptive technology is creating this new industry; that’s what we’re looking for [at Covr],” Kalen said. “These courses give students the knowledge and practical experience to literally walk in and contribute from the first day.”