Mr. Carl Tack ’98
Fall & Spring, 3 Credits
The financial services industry is the country’s largest employer of finance graduates, and is a major component of the U.S. and global economy. This course will introduce students to the institutional framework of financial markets and the financial services industry, and help students to understand at a high level the financial, economic and regulatory context in which many financial decisions get made and transactions executed.
Students study the overall structure of the financial services industry as well as the specific characteristics of the major industry segments: commercial banking, investment banking, insurance and asset management. Students examine financial sector business and funding models, the industry’s approach to risk management and capital allocation and the linkages between the financial services industry and the real economy. They consider representative business transactions facilitated by the financial services industry, and discuss the regulatory environment in which financial institutions operate and financial transactions take place. The course has a significant current events component and addresses issues of public policy concern, including industry governance and professional ethics.
One cannot fully understand the current state or structure of the financial services industry without reference to the historic and transformational events of 2007 – 2009 and beyond (the “Financial Crisis”). During this course, students explore various aspects of the Financial Crisis and reflect upon the changing dynamics of the financial services industry that contributed to and resulted from the Financial Crisis. They begin and end the course term with a discussion of the Financial Crisis, and refer frequently to these events throughout the course term.
This class is a COLL 200 CSI course.
