Financial Mathematics

The Master’s degree in Financial Mathematics, jointly organized by the Mathematics Department of the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa and by the ISCTE-IUL Business School, is intended to promote the advanced training of human resources in the area of stochastic processes applied to Finance.

The Nobel prize in Economics obtained in 1997 by Fisher Black, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton definitely established the relevance of stochastic calculus within the Finance area, and especially in the field of financial derivatives. For instance, the well known Black-Scholes formula for the valuation of option contracts is still the basis for the implementation of hedging strategies based on the no arbitrage principles. Finance theory has become extremely quantitative and complex. As a consequence, many problems that arise within Finance are now investigated through mathematical methods. Moreover, many financial institutions (such as banks, insurance companies, investment funds, pension funds, among others) are now willing to recruit qualified human resources, with a solid quantitative and financial background, to work on many different areas, such as on financial risk management, financial innovations and the valuation of financial instruments.

The Master’s degree in Financial Mathematics is intended to fill the present gap of quantitative knowledge in the financial markets area, and is mainly aimed to attract graduate students from the areas of Mathematics, Physics or Engineering that are willing to pursue a professional or research career in the area of Quantitative Finance. Applications from students arriving from the areas of Finance, Economics or Management will also be considered as long as the candidate’s CV shows a solid background in mathematics.