Financial Technology (FinTech) has
its origins in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis where the financial markets collapsed, traditional
banks and financial institutions came under heavy regulation and many white-collar finance jobs were
lost. The same talent created startups using disruptive technologies that made banking far more
economical to the masses – basically, the digitalization of all processes such as commercial (SMB)
lending, P2P lending, raising capital (Investment Funds, Robo-Advisories, even ICOs-Crypto or IDOs -
DeFi), crowdfunding, payments, insurtech, and regtech, to redefine and eliminate the inefficiencies
that prevailed in the past.
In India, FinTech is now one of the most prolific sectors and has a high degree of venture investor
interest among the growth sectors. FinTech and its related segments – including digital payments,
digital lending and fintech SaaS in India are poised for exponential growth. Several key initiatives
undertaken by the Indian Government and the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the acceptance of
FinTech technologies in India and have catapulted the FinTech sector. The JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan
Yojana, Aadhaar, and Mobile) along with the UPI (United Payments Interface) platform has enabled the
Indian FinTech sector to leap-frog ahead of the FinTech sectors of many developing countries.
The ever-evolving landscape and growth in this segment of Financial Services throw up numerous
employment opportunities for Business (MBA/BBA) students and for developers with an engineering
background. Considering the future scope of the FinTech industry, Jagdish Sheth School of Management
(JAGSoM) introduced the Financial Technologies (‘FinTech’) Career Track in collaboration with Darden
School of Business, University of Virginia, USA.
The objective of the FinTech Career Track is to prepare participants for Fintech roles in the
industry. Participants get a deeper understanding of prevalent global FinTech business models
through an immersion program with Darden School of Business and receive mentoring from both JAGSoM
and Darden faculty. The Career Track in FinTech focusses not only on the Product Management
skillsets, but also on hard Quantitative and Business analytics skills which are prized by Industry.
Participants in the Career Track work on a live industry (Request For Problem - RFP) project with
Indian FinTech companies. Each year, JAGSoM invites industry partners to refer business problems
that they are currently facing which student consulting teams help to solve, each led by a fulltime
faculty member (or an interdisciplinary team of faculty members).
I invite you to have a look at the FinTech Career Track in greater detail in the subsequent pages
and invite you to partner with us to collaborate on RFP projects that may be of mutual interest.
Assistant Professor,
Finance Area,
JAGSoM.
JAGSoM is distinguished by a unique Curriculum 4.0 aligned to the needs
of Industry 4.0. The Curriculum is designed to groom ‘T-shaped professionals’ for new-age roles
in new-age companies and is delivered through the unique pedagogy of ‘Learning by Solving’.
The PGDM program at JAGSoM is delivered by domain specialist faculty, with professional
experience in the industry.
JAGSoM conducteda joint study in collaboration with the National Human Resource Development
Network (NHRDN) to identify the unmet needs of the industry and the skills required for Industry
4.0.
The culmination and analysis of the results of the JAGSoM-NHRDN study
revealed that successful professionals of the future will be ‘T’ shaped professionals, combining
both a l wide breadth of knowledge across areas and in-depth knowledge in a specialised area.
The main focus of Curriculum 4.0 is to groom T-shaped professionals for new age roles in new age
industries.
As illustrated
in the figure above, the top bar of the ‘T’ represents the broad skills such as the people
skills, the social skills, and an appreciation of multi-functional capabilities and how the
functional areas play among themselves.
The Practice Courses at JAGSoM form an important part of the pedagogical interventions and are
accorded great priority. Almost one third of the total credits in the entire PGDM program is
assigned to practice courses. The Practice Courses are ‘Hands – On’ and serve to ensure that
students get ready for Industry 4.0.
The Majors, Minors and the Career Tracks make up the Vertical bar of the ‘T’.
In order to ensure that studentsare ready for Industry 4.0,Curriculum 4.0 includesCareer Tracks
aligned to their professional goals. Students do a deep dive immersion in their Career Tracks to
acquire the required competencies and critical skills to become industry ready.The Career Tracks
enable the students to achieve depth of knowledge and skills in a specific area pertaining to
Industry 4.0.
The Curriculum 4.0 of JAGSoM includes 4 Majors – Marketing, Finance, Analytics & Digital
Business and HR, as well as 7 Career Tracks in MarTech, Sales & Service, FinTech, Capital
Markets, Banking, Business Analytics and Digital HR.
JAGSoM’sCurriculum 4.0 is delivered through the unique pedagogy of
‘Learning by Solving’ where students work in groups to solve real life problems supported by
Industry partners and mentored by domain specialist faculty.
The pedagogy of ‘Learning by Solving’ is operationalized by an integrated pathway consisting of
3 Key Interventions, in which every student at JAGSoM’s PGDM program participates.
Research/Innovation Incubation (RI/II): Students work in small groups either on Research
Projects or Start-Up Ideas, under the guidance of faculty mentors.
In the Research Incubation practice course, the focus is on research topics that impact practice
where students get an in-depth understanding of various domains through sector and company
analysis. The Innovation Incubation practice course is aimed at developing the entrepreneurial
mindset of students and at providing them a structured path to creating and launching their own
startups.
Career Track Program & Request for Problem (RFP) Project: The same student groups from
the Research Incubation and Innovation Incubation practice courses then move on to work on a
live industry project in the Career Track program. Students select a Career Track aligned to
their professional goals and do a deep dive immersion to acquire the required competencies and
critical skills to become industry ready. Career Tracks are offered to students in MarTech,
Sales & Service, FinTech, Capital Markets, Banking, Business Analytics and HR-Digital
Transformation.
The ‘Request for Problem’ (RFP) project is an integral component of the ‘Career Track’ Program.
Each year, JAGSoM invites industry partners to refer business problems that they are currently
facing which student consulting teams help to solve, each led by a fulltime faculty member (or
an interdisciplinary team of faculty members).
Industry Internship Program (IIP): The final step in the pathway is a 3-month long
Industry Internship where the students intern with new-age companies to get hands-on experience.
The IIP is an intensive immersion, enabling the students to apply the domain knowledge acquired
in Research/Innovation Incubation, Career Track and RFP projects, while also understanding
real-world industry applications.
A life-skill and lifestyle-oriented course that addresses issues of wellness and essential skills, like communication, negotiation, and cross-cultural orientation, to groom a holistic individual.
Corporate mentors guide students in goal setting and realization of their professional aspirations.
This course aims at enhancing the ability of students to address the challenges of collaboration, conflict resolution, timely and cost-effective execution of critical activities to achieve specific milestones in institution building activities.
Students undertake immersions with NGOs in rural areas. Students learn to design solutions for social problems through a Techno Economic Viability study, thereby enabling sustainable, socially positive, and measurable impact on UN Sustainable Development Goals.
In the Research Incubation practice course, students work in small groups on Research Projects under the guidance of faculty mentors. The focus is on research topics that impact practice where students get an in-depth understanding of various domains through sector and company analysis.Thispractice course is featured by AACSB in the list of best practices in the Asia Pacific.
This course empowers the participants to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and enables them to tackle business problems & challenges through creativity and innovation.Students work in small groups on Start-Up Ideas under the guidance of faculty mentors.The Innovation Incubation practice course is aimed at developing the entrepreneurial mindset of students and at providing them a structured path to creating and launching their own startups.
The PGDM program concludes with this 3-month long internship providing a transitioning bridge between theory and practice. The Industry Internship Program (IIP) is the final component of the RI-RFP-IIP Integrated Pathway for ‘Learning by Solving’.
The Career Track in FinTech will have the following courses as follows, along with a Capstone Project (RFP):
Machine Learning with Python
Advance FinTech
Applications of Blockchain in Finance
Financial Risk Analytics
FinTech Immersion (Partner University: Darden School of Business)
Capstone Project (RFP)
Professor of Business Administration, Peter M. Grant II Bicentennial Foundation Chair in Business Administration, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.
Education: Ph.D., Boston College
Loutskina's research focuses on financial intermediation. Her research interest includes securitization, commercial banks, strategic management, consumer finance, mortgage markets, small business lending and regulation of financial intermediaries.
Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.
Education: Ph.D., University of British Columbia, M.Sc., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Ting Xu is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. His research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, FinTech and family firms. His work has explored angel financing and crowdfunding.
Adjunct Professor, Finance Area, Jagdish Sheth School of Management
Education: MBA, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, USA, M. Sc., University of Pennsylvania, USA
Prof Tushar is an Actuary from the Society of
Actuaries, USA. He is also affiliated with the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries, UK. He
is a certified Six Sigma trainer. Tushar holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical & Electronics
Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology, Mangalore University. He has a
Dual Master’s in Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications and Networking Engineering
from the University of Pennsylvania. Further, he has a Master’s in Business
Administration from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University where he
was the recipient of Kellogg’s Four Pillar Award for Intellectual Depth.
His experience spans strategy, operations, finance, marketing, risk management,
engineering, nanotechnology, actuarial, analytics, artificial intelligence, machine
learning and deep learning.
Visiting Professor, Finance Area, Jagdish Sheth School of Management
Education: Ph. D., Uttar Pradesh Technical University, India, MBA, West Bengal University of Technology, India, M. Sc., stands for Sikkim Manipal University, India
Dr. Tuhin Chattopadhyay, Founder & CEO of Tuhin
AI Advisory, is a celebrated Industry 4.0 thought leader among both the academic and
corporate fraternity. Recipient of numerous prestigious awards, Tuhin is hailed as
India's Top 10 Data Scientists by Analytics India Magazine.
Tuhin spent the first ten years of his career in academia and research, teaching
business statistics, analytics, and technology at several reputed B-Schools of India. As
a corporate practitioner, Tuhin has a proven record of accomplishment as a
transformational leader in organizations like The Nielsen Company. Currently, he runs
his own consultancy for providing a full suite of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain,
Business Analytics, Business & Social Research, CTO/ CDO/ CAO/ CISO as a Service, Cloud
Computing, Cybersecurity, Data Engineering, Digital Transformation (Mobile & Web App
Development), Intelligent Automation, Management Consultancy (Intelligence
Amplification) services to the clients.
Tuhin is a prolific researcher. He has authored research-based books and has more than
thirty research publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings. As a
corporate trainer, he regularly conducts training programs and workshops on business
analytics in India and abroad. Tuhin is a renowned speaker on analytics and delivers
invited talks and keynote speeches at international conferences like Next Big Tech Asia
17 in 2017 at Kuala Lumpur and Sports Analytics Africa in 2018 at Johannesburg. He is
also invited to judge international data science competitions held across Europe and
USA.
Tuhin is Senior Member of IEEE, life member of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) and
member of Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences’ (INFORMS).
Interested readers may go through his recent interview to DZone, article on AI-powered
NLP and blog on the application of derivatives in analytics. He is the Editor-in-Chief
of International Journal of Business Analytics and Intelligence and is the editorial
board member of several leading journals.
Assistant Professor, Finance Area, Jagdish Sheth School of Management
Education: DBA, SP Jain School of Global Management, Global MBA, EDHEC Business School, France, B. Tech (H), IIT Kharagpur, India, Certification in Quantitative Finance (CQF), Fitch Learning, London, FRM (Part 1 & 2), GARP, USA, CFA (Level 1 & 2), CFA Institute, USA
Prof. Akhilesh has worked in software industry in open-source technology for more than 12 years before moving into Finance. His research is primarily focused on Quantitative Finance, Financial Mathematics, Statistics, and Machine Learning
Director of FinTech, SP Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai
Education: CA, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India - ICAI, CFA, CFA Institute, USA, M. Com, Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics, India
Prof. Vikram is Director of FinTech at SP Jain School of Global Management where he has designed Asia’s first interactive FinTech program featuring Blockchain, API Banking, AI/ML and IoT labs. He has authored several white papers and articles on FinTech domain. He has an extensive experience in banking, financial services, Fintech, consultancy, and training domain. He is founder and Director of Association for Emerging Technologies which is a not-for-profit ecosystem initiative. He is associated as a mentor with various FinTech startups and Fintech focused funds across the globe. He is Fintech ambassador for Maharashtra Govt.'s Uday Fintech platform, and he is helping Fintech committee for Government of Rajasthan and Government of Karnataka. He is founding member of Startup Committee at ICAI. He is heading research at Fintech VC Fund Varanium NexGen. He has been a successful banker for more than a decade where he has made key contributions in Financial & Investor Strategy, Business Intelligence, Balance-sheet Management and Business Development & Technology Solutions. He has been a visiting faculty at various prestigious global institutes.
This is the culmination of the Career Track in FinTech. In this module, students will execute a Capstone project.
Students will be grouped into groups of 5-6 members. Each group will work on a different project.
A few samples project titles which were handled in previous years are given below:
LoanTap
Building fee-based revenue streams (e.g. Insurance Distribution)
Feasibility of building an Insurance Distribution business and other recommendations for enhancing fee-based services
LoanTap
SWOT Analysis of competitors’ Credit Scoring practices
Evaluation of positioning of competitors and where LoanTap can improve its offerings to be at the leading edge
LoanTap
Customer Persona and Targeting for Electric Vehicle Loans (new business segment)
Average Customer Persona (4) from interviewing typical customers, their journey maps and touchpoints of communication and media/messaging
MyShubhLife
Feature Selection for Credit Scoring Model
Using customer dataset to understand key features that predict delinquency of clients and not using the CIBIL score
Ujjivan Bank
Scope for Digital Lending
Examining the scope for digital lending of a Small Finance Bank
