Welcome

Welcome to the website of the Master of Science in Finance of the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel. Let us introduce ourselves. Our names are Olivier Scaillet, directing in Geneva, Michael Rockinger, directing in Lausanne and Carolina Salva, directing in Neuchâtel. We all have a long standing experience in directing demanding programs and it is a pleasure for us to provide you with answers to some of the questions you may have.

The Master of Science in Finance at our Universities is a two-year program, 120 ECTS, constructed around four semesters. During the first semester we consolidate the previous bachelor knowledge with core courses in finance. The next two semesters are dedicated to a specialization, either in wealth management (Geneva), in financial engineering (Lausanne), or in financial analysis preparing for the CFA (Neuchâtel). Last, the fourth semester is dedicated to the writing of a master thesis, possibly within an internship. The core courses are taught in English in Lausanne and Neuchâtel and in French in Geneva. The courses of the remaining semesters are mostly taught in English.

Combining the strength of three Universities implies that we are able to offer a large spectrum of courses. Also, if you peruse the list of faculty members participating in our program you will notice that most of them hold a doctoral degree from most of the prestigious American or European universities. You will also notice that they have an impressive publications record, one of the benchmarks used by academics to gauge their ability. They also have close contacts with the financial industry. As a consequence, we believe that our program is one of the best in Europe, comparable with the best American programs. A precise description of the courses that we offer is available on the following pages.

Our Master of Science in Finance involves members, and builds on the support of the Swiss Finance Institute, a foundation set up by banks with a total endowment of 85 mio CHF.

Candidates who wish to follow our program will see their application examined by the Scientific Committee. With a fee between 500 and 600 CHF for each semester, our program is price competitive.

Our philosophy is to maintain an excellent level of education, because the companies and financial institutions recruiting our graduates expect to. Our graduates wish to be distinguished for their excellence. As a consequence, one of the tasks of the faculty is to ensure an excellent level of education by asking our students to take particularly selective examinations at the end of the first semester. Statistics of the success of students - conditional on their background - is also provided in these pages.

We receive a huge amount of questions concerning our program. Even though we try our best to answer these questions on an individual basis, we notice that many of the questions result from prospective students not having carefully read the various pages of this website. Therefore before sending us an email, please consult carefully the various pages of this site and the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) tab on this page.

We look forward to welcoming you in our Master of Science in Finance program.

Yours truly,

Olivier Scaillet      Michael Rockinger     Carolina Salva