TO meet the demands of the fast-growing area of financial service development, the University of Hong Kong will offer a new Bachelor of Finance programme in the semester starting in September. ''The programme is particularly geared to train people for financial development,'' said Dr Richard Wong Yue-chin, reader of the School of Economics and Finance. He said the programme was designed for local and international marketing. The degree will be awarded for the satisfactory completion of a prescribed course of specialist training in the economics of finance, which includes topics such as pure theory of economics and finance, and in applied topics like banking, international trade and finance, economic organisation, the economics of laws and property rights, portfolio selection and options pricing. In the first year, students will be required to take seven courses. These include introduction to economics, financial statement analysis, elementary statistical methods, mathematics for social science and English for academic communication. In the second and third years, students take a selection of 12 (minimum) or 14 (maximum) courses from those offered by the School of Economics and Finance. Elective courses are grouped into five fields, and the faculty will give guidance on selections. Included is economic foundations of finance, financial theory and analysis, and mathematical and statistical analysis. Dr Wong said this arrangement allowed students a high degree of flexibility in planning their future career specialisation.
