Alternative Finance in the Digitised Economy

The financial services industry is undergoing rapid and far-reaching transformation, underpinned by new and emerging technologies and a range of socio-economic drivers. This transformation is fundamentally changing market structures and opening opportunities for both incumbents and challengers to create innovative, game-changing alternative products and services. 

Many thousands of new firms, products and services are creating an extremely vibrant global alternative finance ecosystem. Everything from blockchain-based digital assets to new wealth management services serving the masses, from online capital raising channels and instruments such as marketplace/peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, initial coin offerings (ICOs) to new payment systems, e-money, remittance services and digital banking services – the financial services system is undergoing a full-scale, technology-driven transformation. 

Experts and academics from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) based at Cambridge Judge Business School and leading practitioners from around the world, offer the opportunity for international participants of this course to get fully immersed in and up-to-speed with the rapidly changing dynamics of the ongoing transformation. This programme enables participants to collaboratively and interactively build a deep understanding of a broad range of key concepts, trends, developments, technologies, risks and opportunities.  

The programme

This programme draws upon the most up-to-date and insightful case studies, data and examples from many different geographies, business models and economic contexts, while benefitting from the expertise and experience offered by the CCAF at Cambridge Judge Business School and its global partners. This programme provides an efficient, timely opportunity for industry leaders and decision-makers to be fully prepared, aware and equipped to deal with the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities posed by the alternative finance industry in the digitised economy. 

Topics

The topics, carefully selected for this programme, are the essential building blocks of the emerging financial transformation in the digitised economy. These themes are encapsulated and explored through analyses of existing case studies and examples drawn from multiple financial activities in many jurisdictions globally. 

The pedagogy consists of simulations, exercises, role-playing activities, cases, discussions and lectures, ensuring that all sessions are highly interactive and applied to the most cutting-edge state of the industry. Each session has key lessons that can be adopted in practice.

Participants will leave the programme with a clear understanding of concepts and practical tools which they can directly apply, harness and transfer to their own businesses, firms and contexts.

Thematic course modules:

• Understanding Alternative Finance in the Digitised Economy: Drivers & Trends
• Alternative Finance Channels and Instruments I: Marketplace/Peer-to-Peer Lending
• Alternative Finance Channels and Instruments II: Equity & Reward-based Crowdfunding
• Distributed Ledger Technology & Applications I: Crypto-Currencies, ICOs & the Tokenised Economy
• Distributed Ledger Technology & Applications II: Blockchain/DLT & its Use Cases
• Alternative Credit Analytics & New Forms of Data
• Alternative Investment Analytics & New Forms of Data
• Alternative Payment Channels & Systems: Mobile, e-Money, Machine-to-Machine Payments
• Alternative Insurance, Wealth Management & Banking: InsureTech, WealthTech, e-Banks
• Alternative Finance Regulations & Policy: Frameworks, Approaches, Landscape, RegTech
• Alternative Finance: Developing Economies and Financial Inclusion