Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Financial Technology [BASc(FinTech)]

SYLLABUS

The syllabus applies to students admitted in the academic year 2021-22 and thereafter under the four-
year curriculum.

Curriculum

The Curriculum comprises 240 credits of courses as follows:

University Requirements
Students are required to complete:
a) 12 credits in language enhancement courses, including 6 credits in an English in the Discipline
course, “CAES9542 Technical English for Computer Science” and 6 credits in Chinese
language enhancement course, “CENG9001 Practical Chinese for engineering students”; and

b) 24 credits of courses in the Common Core Curriculum, comprising at least one course from each
Area of Inquiry.

BASc Core Courses

Students are required to complete 18 credits of BASc core courses.

Major in Financial Technology

Students are required to complete:
a) Discipline Core Courses (54 credits)
b) Discipline Elective Courses (30 credits)
c) Capstone experience (12 credits)

Elective Courses
Students are required to complete 90 credits of elective courses offered by any department, except for
Common Core Courses.

The details of the distribution of the above course categories are as follows:

University Requirements (36 credits)

Course Code Course No. of credits

CAES9542 Technical English for Computer Science 6
CENG9001 Practical Chinese for engineering students 6
CC##XXXX University Common Core Course (4 courses)* 24
Total for University Requirements 36
* Students have to complete 24 credits of courses in the Common Core Curriculum, comprising at least
one course from each Area of Inquiry.

BASc Core Courses (18 credits)

Course Code Course No. of credits

BASC9001 Foundations of human knowledge 6
DESN9002 Sustainable leadership 6
STAT1005 Essential skills for undergraduates: foundations of data 6
science
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Total for BASc Core Courses 18

Discipline Core Courses (54 credits)

Course Code Course No. of credits

ENGG1330 Computer programming I 6
FITE1010 Introduction to financial technologies 6
FITE2000 Foundations of FinTech Programming 6
FITE2010 Distributed ledger and blockchain 6
MATH1853 Linear algebra, probability and statistics** 6
ACCT1101 Introduction to financial accounting 6
ECON1210 Introductory microeconomics 6
FINA1310 Corporate finance 6
LLAW3069 Regulation of financial markets 6
Total for Discipline Core Courses 54
** For candidates without taking Extended Module 1 or 2 in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary
Education examinations, or equivalent, they have to take “MATH1011 University mathematics I” (6
credits) in the first semester of their first year of studies.

Discipline Elective Courses (30 credits)

6 credits of courses to be chosen from the following list:

Course Code Course No. of

credits
LLAW3150 Introduction to information technology law 6
LLAW3244 Alternative Finance 6
LLAW3254 Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) 6
LLAW3255 Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) 6
Internship

24 credits of courses to be chosen from the following list:

Course Code Course No. of

credits
COMP3314 / Machine learning / 6
ELEC4544 Artificial intelligence and deep learning
COMP3322 Modern technologies on World Wide Web 6
COMP3340 Applied deep learning 6
COMP3355 Cyber security 6
COMP3362 Hands-on AI: experimentation and applications 6
FINA2320 Investments and portfolio analysis 6
FINA2322 Derivatives 6
FINA3350 Mathematical finance 6
FINA3353 Regulatory and operational issues in finance 6
FINA4350 Text analytics and natural language processing in finance and 6
fintech
FITE3010 Big data and data mining 6
FITE3012 E-payment and crypto-currency 6
ENGL1015 Introduction to English linguistics 6
ENGL2050 English corpus linguistics 6
Complete at least five Discipline Elective courses for a total of 30 credits 30

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Capstone Experience (12 credits)

Course Code Course No. of credits

FITE4801 Project 12
Total for Capstone Experience 12

Electives (90 credits)

Any courses except Common Core Courses.

Summary of curriculum structure of BASc(FinTech)

Course Categories No. of credits

University Requirements 36
BASc Core Courses 18
Major in Financial Technology 96
Discipline Core Courses (54 credits)
Discipline Elective Courses (30 credits)
Capstone Experience (12 credits)
Electives 90
Total 240

A sample study plan is given as follows:

FIRST YEAR

University Requirements (12 credits)

CC##XXXX Two Common Core Courses 12

BASc Core Courses (12 credits)

BASC9001 Foundations of human knowledge 6
DESN9002 Sustainable leadership 6

Discipline Core Courses (30 credits)

ENGG1330 Computer programming I 6
FITE1010 Introduction to financial technologies 6
FITE2000 Foundations of FinTech Programming 6
ACCT1101 Introduction to financial accounting 6
ECON1210 Introductory microeconomics 6

Elective Courses (6 credits) 6

SECOND YEAR

University Requirements (12 credits)

CC##XXXX Two Common Core Courses 12

BASc Core Courses (6 credits)

STAT1005 Essential skills for undergraduates: foundations of data science 6

Discipline Core Courses (18 credits)

FITE2010 Distributed ledger and blockchain 6
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 MATH1853 Linear algebra, probability and statistics 6
FINA1310 Corporate finance 6

Discipline Elective Courses (6 credits) 6

Elective Courses (18 credits) 18

THIRD YEAR

University Requirements (6 credits)

CENG9001 Practical Chinese for engineering students 6

Discipline Core Courses (6 credits)

LLAW3069 Regulation of financial markets 6

Discipline Elective Courses (18 credits) 18

Elective Courses (30 credits) 30

FOURTH YEAR

University Requirements (6 credits)

CAES9542 Technical English for Computer Science 6

Capstone Experience (12 credits)

FITE4801 Project 12

Discipline Elective Courses (6 credits) 6

Elective Courses (36 credits) 36

__________________________________________________________________________________

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Candidates will be required to do the coursework in the respective courses selected. Not all courses are
offered every semester.

University Requirements on Language Enhancement Courses

CAES9542. Technical English for Computer Science (6 credits)

This one-semester, 6-credit communication course is for final-year students majoring in Computer
Science / Computing and Data Analytics / Financial Technology [BASc(FinTech)]. The focus of this
course is on helping students to report on the progress of their Final Year or Capstone Project in an
effective, professional manner in both written and oral communication. Topics include accessing,
abstracting, analyzing, organizing and summarizing information; making effective grammatical and
lexical choices; technical report writing; and technical presentations. Assessment is wholly by
coursework.

Co-requisite: COMP4801 or COMP4802 or COMP4804 or FITE4801

Assessment: 100% continuous assessment

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CENG9001. Practical Chinese for engineering students (6 credits)

The course is designed to enable students to gain a mastery of the varieties of the Chinese language as
used in the field of Engineering. It introduces students to various techniques for the effective use of
practical Chinese. The course will familiarize students with traditional Chinese characters, simplified
Chinese characters, modern Chinese grammar and rhetoric through outcomes-based assignments.
Special training that is intended to sharpen students’ presentation skills in Cantonese and Putonghua
will also be provided.

Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination.

University Common Core Curriculum

Successful completion of 24 credits of courses in the Common Core Curriculum, comprising one course
from each Area of Inquiry with not more than 24 credits of courses being selected within one academic
year except where candidates are required to make up for failed credits:

• Science, Technology and Big Data

• Arts and Humanities
• Global Issues
• China: Culture, State and Society

BASc Core Courses

DESN9002. Sustainable leadership (6 credits)

"Leadership" often conjures up images of hierarchy, the top down power that creates unnecessary
tension between the haves and the have nots. Such leadership can exacerbate social inequalities,
alienation and environmental destruction. In a society that is increasingly connected, and evolving ever
rapidly, this form of centralised concentrated leadership cannot answer to change fast enough.

So, what kind of leadership do we need to guarantee humans are best able to care for and support each
other and the environment? What are the other models of leadership we need? Where will this change
come from? How will we adapt and evolve the current conception of leadership towards a more
sustainable world? What is the difference between "leadership", "Thought Leadership" and "Sustainable
Leadership"?

It is clear that our generation has the duty to reinvent leadership and implement it in society overall.
The University of Hong Kong Bachelor of Arts and Science (BASc) are uniquely positioned to address
such questions galvanising strong domain knowledge in science, technology, finance, design and social
sciences.

Hong Kong and the world needs a new generation of leaders that understand empathy, interdependency,
that is creative, resilient, visionary, and highly cooperative. Such qualities are better learned by
experience than merely by theory. Not only is it about acquiring knowledge, but it is really about creating
the knowledge about the new form of leadership we need.

Assessment: 100% coursework

BASC9001. Foundations of human knowledge (6 credits)

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How does knowledge emerge from different disciplines? What is the nature and limit of knowledge
generated by different methods? This foundations course will open up an interdisciplinary discourse
about knowledge building and integration in arts and humanities, social sciences, and sciences. It will
consist of three parts:

1. A philosophical and historical perspective of human knowledge.

In this part students will engage in debates about the nature of knowledge, ways of knowing, and
integrating knowledge. Students will also study how certain forms of knowledge formation have become
dominant in our society, and learn how humans have come to know what we know today about ourselves
and our planet.

2. From knowledge to judgement.

Knowledge is not just about information and facts. Knowledge calls for wisdom to interpret data and to
make decisions about how to act upon them; it also requires critical reflections about the human
condition and our roles and responsibilities as individuals and as a collective. In this part of the course,
we will examine moral principles and ethical dilemmas during the process of building and responding
to knowledge.

3. Knowledge sharing.
We will look at traditional and creative methods of knowledge dissemination, and explore opportunities
and challenges in knowledge transfer in the information society. This course will help students build a
solid foundation on knowledge creation, sharpen their critical thinking skills when they confront new
information and ideas, and prepare them to become effective analysts and communicators of knowledge.

Assessment: 100% coursework

STAT1005. Essential skills for undergraduates: foundations of data science (6 credits)

The course introduces basic concepts and methodology of data science to junior undergraduate students.
The teaching is designed at a level appropriate for all undergraduate students with various backgrounds
and without pre-requisites.

Students will engage in a full data work-flow including collaborative data science projects. They will
study a full spectrum of data science topics, from initial investigation and data acquisition to the
communication of final results.

Specifically, the course provides exposure to different data types and sources, and the process of data
curation for the purpose of transforming them to a format suitable for analysis. It introduces elementary
notions in estimation, prediction and inference. Case studies involving less-manicured data are
discussed to enhance the computational and analytical abilities of the students.

Assessment: 100% coursework

Discipline Core Courses

ACCT1101. Introduction to financial accounting (6 credits)

The course will cover the principles of double entry book-keeping, the interpretation of financial
statements, the issues raised by corporate regulation, and the use of management information for
decision making.
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Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

ECON1210. Introductory microeconomics (6 credits)

An introduction to the basic concepts and principles of microeconomics – the study of demand and
supply, consumer theory, cost and production, market structure, incentives, and resource allocation
efficiency.

Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

ENGG1330. Computer programming I (6 credits)

This is an introductory course designed for first-year engineering students to learn about computer
programming. Students will acquire basic Python programming skills, including syntax, identifiers,
control statements, functions, recursions, strings, lists, dictionaries, tuples and files. Searching and
sorting algorithms, such as sequential search, binary search, bubble sort, insertion sort and selection sort,
will also be covered.

Mutually exclusive with: COMP1117 or ENGG1111

Assessment: 70% continuous assessment, 30% examination

FINA1310. Corporate finance (6 credits)

This is an introductory course that develops the basic concepts and tools applicable to corporate financial
decisions. Three main tasks of financial managers are studied: (i) investment evaluation, (ii) financing
decisions, and (iii) payout decisions. Specific topics include present value calculation, valuation of
stocks and bonds, investment criteria and capital budgeting, risk and return, cost of capital, capital
structure, raising capital, and dividend policy.

Pre-requisite: ACCT1101
Mutually exclusive with: STAT3904
Assessment: 45% continuous assessment, 55% examination

FITE1010. Introduction to financial technologies (6 credits)

An introduction to the basic concepts of financial technologies, such as e-payment system,

cryptocurrency, blockchain, data mining, and artificial intelligence.

Assessment: 40% continuous assessment, 60% examination

FITE2000. Foundations of FinTech Programming (6 credits)

This course introduces concepts and applications of basic data structures. Commonly used data
structures, which include stacks and queues, trees, lists, arrays and graphs, will be discussed. Basic
algorithms, both recursive and non-recursive, to manipulate these data structures will also be discussed.
Basic object-oriented programming principles, which are abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance and
polymorphism, will be introduced. The practical work of the course will use an object-oriented
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programming language and corresponding data structure library. Students will be required to apply the
data structures to solve practical and/or FinTech problems.

Pre-requisite: ENGG1330 or COMP1117

Mutually exclusive with: COMP2396 and ELEC2543
Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

FITE2010. Distributed ledger and blockchain (6 credits)

This course introduces basic theories of blockchain and distributed ledger, which includes basic
cryptography, public key cryptosystem, distributed computing and consensus protocols. Financial
applications of blockchain and distributed ledger will be discussed.

Prerequisites: FITE1010 or MATH1853 or MATH2101; and COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000

Assessment: 40% continuous assessment, 60% examination

LLAW3069. Regulation of financial markets (6 credits)

This course addresses the nature and operation of financial markets and the role of regulation. Coverage,
based on comparative analysis and international standards, will include major financial sectors (banking,
securities, insurance), supporting legal and institutional structures, and current issues and trends. Core
themes are: the nexus between finance, technology and regulation (FinTech and RegTech), competition
between globalisation and fragmentation, and the role of finance in crises and sustainable development.

Assessment: 100% take home examination

_________________________________________________________________________________

MATH1853. Linear algebra, probability and statistics (6 credits)

As the complementary course of MATH1851, students will be introduced to more topics of mathematics
commonly applied in engineering so that students could be further enhanced with a concrete skill in
mathematics underpinned for different engineering subjects. The course emphasizes mathematical
concepts, principles, analysis, and their relationship to the modelling of engineering systems. Students
could be furnished with the essential mathematical skills to analytically tackle some typical engineering
problems to prepare for all the engineering subjects.

Pre-requisite: Level 2 or above in Module 1, or Module 2 of HKDSE Mathematics or equivalent, or

Pass in MATH1011, or take MATH1011 and MATH1853 concurrently in the same semester. (This
course is exclusively for Engineering students.)

Assessment: 20% continuous assessment; 80% examination

Discipline Elective Courses

COMP3314. Machine learning (6 credits)

This course introduces algorithms, tools, practices, and applications of machine learning. Topics include
core methods such as supervised learning (classification and regression), unsupervised learning
(clustering, principal component analysis), Bayesian estimation, neural networks; common practices in
data pre-processing, hyper-parameter tuning, and model evaluation; tools/libraries/APIs such as scikit-
learn, Theano/Keras, and multi/many-core CPU/GPU programming.
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Prerequisites: MATH1853 or MATH2101; and COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000
Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination
__________________________________________________________________________________

COMP3322. Modern technologies on World Wide Web (6 credits)

Selected network protocols relevant to the World Wide Web (e.g., HTTP, DNS, IP); World Wide Web;
technologies for programming the Web (e.g, HTML, style sheets, PHP, JavaScript, Node.js.; other topics
of current interest (AJAX, HTML5, web services, cloud computing).

Prerequisite: COMP1117 or ENGG1330 or ENGG1111 or ENGG1112

Mutually exclusive with: IIMT3663
Assessment: 60% continuous assessment, 40% examination

COMP3340. Applied deep learning (6 credits)

An introduction to algorithms and applications of deep learning. The course helps students get hands-
on experience of building deep learning models to solve practical tasks including image recognition,
image generation, reinforcement learning, and language translation. Topics include: machine learning
theory; optimization in deep learning; convolutional neural networks; recurrent neural networks;
generative adversarial networks; reinforcement learning; self-driving vehicle.

Prerequisites: COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000; and MATH1853

Mutually exclusive with: ELEC4544
Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

COMP3355. Cyber security (6 credits)

This course introduces the principles, mechanisms and implementation of cyber security and data
protection. Knowledge about the attack and defense are included. Topics include notion and terms of
cyber security; network and Internet security, introduction to encryption: classic and modern encryption
technologies; authentication methods; access control methods; cyber attacks and defenses (e.g. malware,
DDoS).

Pre-requisite: COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000

Mutually exclusive with: ELEC4641
Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

COMP3362. Hands-on AI: experimentation and applications (6 credits)

This course comprises two main components: students first acquire the basic know-how of the state-of-
the-art AI technologies, platforms and tools (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn) via example-based
modules in a self-paced learning mode. Students will then identify a creative or practical data-driven
application and implement an AI-powered solution for the application as the course project. Students
will be able to experience a complete AI experimentation and evaluation cycle throughout the project.

Pre-requisite: COMP3314
Assessment: 100% continuous assessment

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ELEC4544. Artificial intelligence and deep learning (6 credits)
This course aims at providing students with a basic understanding on deep learning technology. The
topics to be covered are neural network, backpropagation, deep auto-encoder, Restricted Boltzmann
Machines (RBM), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), strategies for
training deep architectures, handling overfitting, cross-validation, meta-heuristic searching for
parameter tuning. This is followed by hands-on implementation of deep learning algorithms using
Python, with applications ranging from image classification, speech processing, and financial data
analysis.

After finish the course, students will be able to

1. Master the basic concept of deep learning in artificial intelligence.
2. Master the Python programing language for implementing deep learning model.
3. Apply deep learning in novel applications.

Pre-requisite: ELEC3241 Signals and linear systems

Assessment: 55% continuous assessment, 45% examination

FINA2320. Investments and portfolio analysis (6 credits)

This course introduces students to the fundamental principles of investments and to major issues
currently of concern to all investors. The concepts and skills developed from this course enable students
to conduct a sophisticated assessment of current issues and debates covered by both the popular media
as well as more-specialized finance journals. We emphasize equity investments and the main topics
include: portfolio theory, equilibrium in capital markets, equity valuation, portfolio performance
evaluation, and relevant institutional details.

Pre-requisites: ECON1210 and FINA1310

Co-requisites: ECON1280 or STAT1600 or STAT1601 or STAT1602 or STAT1603 or STAT2601 or
STAT2901 or MATH1853
Mutually exclusive with: STAT3609 and STAT3952
Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination

FINA2322. Derivatives (6 credits)

The major objective of this course is to promote an in-depth understanding of basic derivatives.
Derivatives have become a popular hedging and investment tool over the last several decades and
derivatives concepts are required for every advanced finance topic. This course provides students with
a framework to understand the fundamental concepts of derivative products (forward and futures,
options, swaps, and basic structured products), to develop the necessary skills used in valuing derivative
contracts, and to understand a wide variety of issues related to risk management and investment
decisions using derivatives.

Pre-requisites: ECON1210 and FINA1310

Mutually exclusive with: IMSE4110 and STAT3618 and STAT3905 and STAT3910
Remarks: NOT OPEN to students taking or having taken MATH3906
Assessment: 45% continuous assessment; 55% examination

FINA3350. Mathematical finance (6 credits)

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This course provides students with the necessary mathematical techniques used in continuous-time
finance. It covers stochastic calculus, partial differential equation and applied probability. After taking
this course, one should be able to fully understand no-arbitrage theory, the Black-Scholes equation, risk-
neutral probability and martingales. The purpose of this course is to lay down a solid mathematical
foundation for students to learn more advanced topics in financial engineering, such as exotic options,
interest rate derivatives and credit risk models.

Pre-requisite: FINA2322
Mutually exclusive with: MATH3906
Assessment: 40% continuous assessment, 60% examination

__________________________________________________________________________________

FINA3353. Regulatory and operational issues in finance (6 credits)

This course addresses a number of practical issues in quantitative finance. They include compliance,
taxation, operational risk, best practices, and professional codes of ethics as practiced in the quantitative
finance industry. These issues are taught in the context of case studies so that students can appreciate
the peculiar company-specific and market-specific factors in decision making. Famous cases such as
Enron, Long-term Capital Management, and Lehman Brothers are examined.

Pre-requisites: FINA2320 and FINA2322

Assessment: 50% continuous assessment, 50% examination
__________________________________________________________________________________

FINA4350. Text analytics and natural language processing in finance and fintech (6 credits)

This course covers the main elements of natural language processing (NLP), text analytics, and text
mining, providing students with a foundation in collecting, managing, and analyzing textual data with
financial and economic applications in mind, such as FinTech. Examples of potential applications
include understanding and responding to sentiment in financial newspapers and social media, using
social media to improve performance in asset/investment management, due diligence, Fed watching,
monitoring of company events, and detecting insider trading. Although students write their own
computer programs in this course, they are not required to implement most algorithms from scratch.
Instead, the focus of this course is on how to use existing state-of-the-art open-source software libraries
and how to apply them in a financial context. This course consists of three parts. In the first part, we
work with real-world textual data sets to obtain proficiency in collecting, importing, organizing, and
cleaning textual data from sources related to finance and economics. Among others, we cover web
scraping, textual corpora, text processing, tokenization, stemming, and stop word removal. In the second
part we delve into a more detailed analysis of NLP, text analytics, and machine learning with a particular
focus on FinTech. For instance, we examine bag-of-words, word weighting schemes, document
classification, document clustering, sentiment analysis, and topic models. The third part consists of
summarizing, displaying, and visualizing results obtained from NLP and text analytics for applications
in finance and economics.

Assessment: 70% continuous assessment, 30% examination

__________________________________________________________________________________

FITE3010. Big data and data mining (6 credits)

The goal of the course is to study the main methods used today for data mining and on-line analytical
processing. Topics include Big Data Architecture, Data Mining Algorithms, Classification, and
Clustering.

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Prerequisites: FITE1010 or MATH1853 or MATH2101; and COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000
Assessment: 40% continuous assessment, 60% examination
_________________________________________________________________________________

FITE3012. E-payment and crypto-currency (6 credits)

The course covers banking systems, e-payment security, foreign exchange, Internet banking, wireless
payments, stored-value cards, micropayments, peer-to-peer payments, electronic and crypto-currencies
such as Bitcoin, large-scale B2B payments and the future of money.

Prerequisites: FITE1010 or MATH1853 or MATH2101; and COMP2119 or ELEC2543 or FITE2000

Assessment: 40% continuous assessment, 60% examination
__________________________________________________________________________________

LLAW3150. Introduction to information technology law (6 credits)

This is a basic course in the LLM IP/IT stream introducing students to the information technology and
the legal issues arising from the technology. The course will begin by examining the essential features
of information technology and the characteristics of the Internet, followed by investigations into the
legal issues created by the technology. Discussions will primarily be based on the laws of Hong Kong,
with references made to the laws of other leading jurisdictions. Topics to be covered include, but are
not not limited to, the following:

 Introduction to information technology and the Internet

 Intellectual property issues
 Illegal contents on the Internet (e.g. defamatory or obscene materials)
 Online trading
 Data privacy
 E-crimes
 Jurisdictional issues

Assessment: 100% research paper

__________________________________________________________________________________

LLAW3244. Alternative Finance (6 credits)

The course will critically evaluate the claim that FinTech—a portmanteau of finance and technology,
including blockchain, artificial intelligence, robo adviser solution, big data and automated suspicious
transaction monitoring technology systems—has the ability to revolutionise financial inclusion and
examines whether RegTech can be used by regulators for tracking and monitoring financial institutions’
compliance activities.

RegTech is a new form of FinTech since both are rooted in post-2008 global financial crisis regulatory
requirements, although RegTech’s development was preceded by that of FinTech. Notably, the causes
underlying FinTech’s and RegTech’s respective developments vary. RegTech is deployed to meet the
regulatory challenges created by FinTech. Specifically, RegTech aims to more effectively regulate new
commercial transactions facilitated by FinTech, such as payments made through mobile devices and
equity crowdfunding through the internet portals which are cornerstones of the proposed course on
alternative finance (i.e. internet financing).

Hong Kong is a leading international financial centre; its reputation and strategic role necessitates its
work with international community by connecting to the global FinTech industries in the US, the UK,
Singapore and China and their regulators in order to create an alternative opportunity to devise smarter
financial regulations and better resolution within the FinTech sector.

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The course will begin by expounding the role of FinTech in both the shadow banking and the traditional
banking systems, followed by an exploration of the types of FinTech-enabled products and payment
services such as crowdfunding and P2P lending, and ending with a forward-looking approach in tackling
some critical and timely issues related to FinTech, including, but not limited to, financial
democratisation, improving access to financial system, sharing economy and privacy protection for
consumers.

Assessment: 80% Take home final exam, 20% Group research project
__________________________________________________________________________________

LLAW3254. Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) (6 credits)

This course focuses on the legal environment impacting entrepreneurs, startups and new innovative
businesses and ideas. It addresses the core aspects of setting up a new business, including legal structures,
hiring staff, protecting intellectual property, raising finance, licensing considerations, data protection
and usage, and cross-border operations. It is designed for upper year students in any discipline who are
considering a new venture or already involved in a startup or innovative project.

Assessment: 80% short assignments, 20% class participation

LLAW3255. Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) Internship (6 credits)

This is an experiential learning course in which students will be placed with startups and innovation labs
in order to gain an understanding of the environment in which such firms operate. It will include a taught
as well as an assessed component.

Assessment: 100% internship report

__________________________________________________________________________________

ENGL1015. Introduction to English linguistics (6 credits)

This survey course offers a comprehensive first introduction to the linguistic study of English, covering
the various levels of analysis (and the core branches of linguistics that study them): sounds (phonetics
and phonology), words (morphology and lexicology), meanings (semantics and pragmatics), grammar
(syntax), text and discourse (discourse analysis). It will also offer a first introduction to a number of key
aspects of language use (and the linguistic disciplines dealing with them): language acquisition and
processing (psycholinguistics), language change (historical linguistics), regional and social variation
(sociolinguistics), [literary] style (stylistics). Finally, the course will introduce a number of
methodological and theoretical approaches one can take in the academic study of a language, and
consequently also in English language research.

Assessment: 100% coursework.

ENGL2050. English corpus linguistics (6 credits)

Corpus linguistics is a rapidly-developing methodology in the study of language. It exploits the power
of modern computer technology to manipulate and analyse large collections of naturally occurring
language (‘corpora’). This course will introduce students to the use of computers and computerized
corpora as tools for exploring the English language.

Assessment: 100% coursework.

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Capstone Experience

FITE4801. Project (12 credits)

Student individuals or groups, during the final year of their studies, undertake full end-to-end
development of a substantial project, taking it from initial concept through to final delivery. The project
will be the application of technology to finance discipline.

Assessment: 100% continuous assessment

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