By Sam Wood STAFF WRITER
Get a free crash course in the new financial technologies this summer from one of the world’s elite business schools.
The Wharton School announced this week that it is offering a new online package of courses focusing on cryptocurrency, blockchain, crowdfunding, and insurance technology. Each class features lectures and case studies from the school’s faculty and business luminaries. Registration began June 5.
The online course is offered for free, but for $79, students can get a certificate of completion if they finish the course in a month.
The course is primarily designed for working professionals looking to add new skills to their resumés, but it’s also suitable for investors interested in Bitcoin, and students who want a taste of a financial-technology class before dropping thousands of dollars on tuition.
Fintech: Foundations and Applications of Financial Technologies is available on Coursera and will take about a month to complete. There are no hard deadlines to meet, so students can learn on their own schedule. It does not require any prerequisites, but each segment of the course builds on the previous course. Some basic financial knowledge will be helpful.
“We’ve been seeing a growing demand for information about financial technologies for the past two years,” said Anne Trumbore, senior director of Wharton Online. “We really saw a huge demand from our own M.B.A. students. A lot of our graduates are going to work in fintech, and our grads are starting these companies and inventing the future. We thought it would be good to put this program together for understanding from a trusted source.”
Classes include FinTech: Foundations, Payments, and Regulations with Natasha Sarin of Penn Law and Chris Geczy of Wharton; and Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: An Introduction to Digital Currencies with professors Jessica Wachter and Sarah Hammer of Wharton.
The second modules include Lending, Crowdfunding, and Modern Investing with David Musto, chairman of the Wharton finance department; and Fintech Specialties: InsurTech, Real Estate Tech, and Artificial Intelligence with Geczy and Warren Pennington, global head of Vanguard’s Office of Investment Management Fintech Strategies.
Wharton, part of the University of Pennsylvania, launched the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance in April.
Wharton Online also offers a series of core classes on business essentials. About 100,000 have enrolled in the Wharton program and earned 250,000 certificates, Trumbore said. samwood@phillynews.com
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