After the financial tsunami in 2008, there are on-going reforms in the finance industry. Financial budgets are tight and fewer staff members now perform more duties. To meet the needs of employers for finance professionals skilled in integrating Finance knowledge with programming tools, particularly Excel and VBA, professionals working in the financial markets need to have multiple talents, including programming, and in-depth understanding about the financial markets. Employers not only value strong academic background but also various soft skills, including computer literacy.

Students would have many opportunities to develop their discovery and innovative abilities as they design their Excel models to solve the various problems in commercial and investment banking, such as generating trade and portfolio reports, managing risks, etc.

Through working on various sample assignments and projects used in the investment banking environment, this course aims to help students to

1. learn the essential knowledge of using Excel spreadsheet functions as a decision making tool for formulating suitable solutions to tackle real-world problems in the financial industry, and
2. gain hands-on experience and professional skills of using Excel worksheet functions, pivot table, charts and VBA macros (Visual Basic Applications) for the practical implementation of financial model.