Elon University is offering a FinTech major in the fall of 2023

Elon University will offer a new FinTech major this fall in the Love School of Business for students who want to pursue data analytics and programming in finance.

FinTech, a combination of finance and technology, merges the theory of finance with the more technical side of payment processes and automation. The new major will offer electives in trade and markets, blockchain and other technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Chris Harris, chair of the finance department, said the major teaches financial theory using current and future technology.

“Technology is really changing the pace at which things happen and how they happen,” Harris said. “It was unheard of not too long ago that you could just send money to a friend online. Now it’s just so natural and common.”

Harris said the key requirements include a liberal arts elective that will help students understand the ethics of new financial technology, especially AI.

“If I’m trying to accomplish a financial task, how will these other things make it possible?” Harris said. “And how will that — hopefully if I have some kind of moral or ethical grounding — allow that to happen in a responsible way?”

According to Harris, the university created new electives for the major in addition to using courses already offered.

The three new courses offered next autumn for the major are FIN 4973: Blockchain and Emerging Technologies, FIN 4974: Trading and Markets and FIN 4975: Data Analysis in Finance. Each has been offered at least once this year and will apply to the major, which was officially approved in December 2022.

“Let’s not think about it in terms of the electives we already have,” Harris said. “Let’s look at it to say, ‘What is the future going to be, and what would be the things students need to know to be ready for it?'”

Harris said the decision was made jointly by members of the economics and management departments, as well as the business school’s dean’s office, which came up with the idea in the fall of 2021. Elon will be one of about 20 schools nationwide to offer FinTech as an undergraduate. degree,

Joe DelGrippo, a senior finance major, said he wishes Elon offered the major earlier.

Last spring, DelGrippo held an internship at Alinea Investa FinTech startup with an app that encourages young people to invest in mutual funds and competes with apps like Robinhood or Acorns.

He worked as a business development specialist and worked with blockchain technology – new to him at the time.

“I definitely had to learn on the job when it came to blockchain and things like blockchain, finance and cryptocurrency — just more of the new age finance,” DelGrippo said. “I wasn’t as prepared for it as I could have been.”

He also said that FinTech allows average citizens to invest without an intermediary.

“There is a new financial wave coming. Personal finance is really being put in the hands of the retail investor,” DelGrippo said. “Instead of going to your financial advisor or your broker and saying, ‘Hey, I want to buy X many shares of this,’ you can just do it on your phone now.”

Professor of Finance Thibaut Morillon currently teaches Blockchain and Emerging Technologies and will continue to teach the course next academic year. Morillon said his course teaches the basics of blockchain, which is often associated with digital currency.

“Bitcoin comes to mind, but that’s hardly the only thing you can do with it,” Morillon said. “In fact, cryptocurrencies are hardly just an application of blockchain.”

Morillon said blockchain acts as a digital public ledger that allows people to track transactions.

“It can’t be tampered with,” Morillon said. “So it has a lot of value because it allows you to track something extremely precisely.”

Morillon said that while the concept seems daunting, it’s easier to understand when students have an understanding of the basics.

“Most things aren’t terribly complicated,” Morillon said. “It’s more complex than complicated.”

Morillon said he has seen students excited to learn about new technology in finance.

“Students are excited to just dive into something that’s completely new,” Morillon said. “Some of them told me it was wonderful to have the opportunity to study something that’s happening right now.”

Adam Aiken, professor of finance, will teach two of the three new electives next year and said it will be necessary for the finance faculty to keep the courses up-to-date as technology changes.

“It’s up to us to be interested and stay engaged, and not get in our way,” Aiken said. “You can never lose sight of the foundation or the fundamental principles – they will never change – that’s the heart of economics, but how you go about it will.”

Aiken said the FinTech electives have been popular so far.

“Students reveal a preference to get some of these skills to be able to approach problems from a programmatic way — the coding background — but still very much within the business discipline in an applied way,” Aiken said.

DelGrippo said the addition of the major is a good decision, especially because technology will continue to evolve in the financial industry.

“FinTech is definitely here to stay — in the way people invest, especially our age and our generation,” DelGrippo said. “There’s just a lot of potential to cut out the institutions and the advisors.”

He said the major will prepare students well for the future of economics.

“It seems like a new way. It just feels very appropriate and it feels like it had to happen because of the way technology is evolving,” DelGrippo said. “Finance is such an old-fashioned field.”