Combining IT and finance in a new degree programme
The School of Information Technology has introduced a new undergraduate programme combining Information Systems and Finance.
The finance sector has in recent years seen an unprecedented growth of financial technologies. From mobile money services to cryptocurrencies, finance and technology have become effectively the way business is done.
There is an urgent need to provide the appropriate talent for the finance sector to respond to technology, identify challenges and manage expectations in society at large. Data storage, privacy, protection, system development and moving banking organisations to the cloud, requires a new type of graduate - someone who is skilled in the field of technology as well as the Finance Sector.
With an increase in the need for more innovation and digital business models, organisations are wanting IT versatilists, a phrased coined by Gartner, rather than specialists and want a mixture of functional knowledge and technology in one individual.
The School of IT aims to address the current skills gap by allowing students to take a combination of Finance and IS/CS courses to graduate with a BCom specialising in IS and Finance. Graduates with Information Systems and Finance can fill the roles IS majors traditionally fill and there are also many new roles. Examples include developer, project manager, business analyst, system analyst, data analyst, application/ data/ information/ business/ cloud architect.