News

Days ago, the book Fintech was published. It was co-authored by Zhang Bohui, Presidential Chair Professor and Executive Dean of the School of Management and Economics (SME), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen); Li Dan, Presidential Young Fellow and Associate Professor of SME, CUHK-Shenzhen; Kou Gang, Professor of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE); and Zhao Lin, Professor of SWUFE.

As a cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary subject, Fintech covers a wide range of know-how and has a complex structure. Therefore, it is quite difficult to teach such a course well. For one thing, it covers multiple disciplines such as economics, finance, management, and computer science, requiring students to have some understanding of the core theories of modern finance and master certain technologies and algorithms related to big data mining and processing and programming, a typical integration of liberal arts, science, and business. For another, it is closely connected to current hot issues and popular applications, demanding teachers combine theories with practical cases, and methods and techniques with practical operations in their teaching process. Therefore, it is quite innovative and challenging to teach such a course.

CUHK-Shenzhen launched the MSc programme in Data Science in 2017 and the major of Financial Engineering for undergraduates in 2018, with FinTech as one of its streams. The authors of the book opened a course on “Fintech” in the hope of cultivating more compound talents in FinTech for society. In 2018, the authors began to offer relevant courses for undergraduates and postgraduates at SWUFE. In the teaching process, they accumulated certain teaching experience and found that despite the ever-emerging textbooks in this field, the systematic elements and practicality still need to be improved.

In 2020, the “FinTech” course at SWUFE was approved by the Ministry of Education as the first batch of national first-class undergraduate courses, which inspired the compilation of the book. With the goal of creating a high-quality Fintech textbook with breadth (a complete know-how system), difficulty (great challenges in learning), and height (reflections of national strategies), the authors reorganized and integrated the original self-compiled lecture notes and continuously exchanged ideas for revision and updating. It took them two years to complete it.

Authors’ Profile

Zhang Bohui

Zhang Bohui is a Doctoral Supervisor and Executive Dean of SME, Presidential Chair Professor at CUHK-Shenzhen, Associate Director of Shenzhen Institute of Data Economy, and Director of the Center for FinTech and Social Finance, Shenzhen Finance Institute (SFI). He serves as an expert on the Shenzhen Decision Making Advisory Committee and Vice Chairman of the Financial Innovation Advisory Committee of the Shenzhen Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the China Academic Committee for Responsible Management Education. He was a tenured full professor at UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney, and Associate Director of the Institute of Global Finance (IGF). He was awarded the Youth Scientific Research Award by CUHK-Shenzhen in 2021, the Youth Research Scholar Medal by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2016, and the Youth Research Scholar Medal by the UNSW in 2010.

Li Dan

Li Dan is a Doctoral Supervisor and Associate Professor of SME, Presidential Young Fellow at CUHK-Shenzhen, Director of the MSc Programme in Finance at CUHK-Shenzhen, and Associate Director of the Capital Markets and Asset Management Research Center of SFI. Her research results have been published in top international academic journals such as the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics. She served as an in-house researcher for the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Capital Markets CRC Ltd. (CMCRC), Australia.

Co-authors

Kou Gang, Professor of SWUFE

Zhao Lin, Professor of SWUFE