HSE Creates Department of Financial Market Infrastructure with the Support of Moscow Exchange

© Moscow Exchange/moex.com

HSE and Moscow Exchange are founding a joint Department of Financial Market Infrastructure at the Faculty of Economic Sciences. It will bring together HSE lecturers and Moscow Exchange staff. Students will be offered new courses and will also have the opportunity to participate in project work and undertake internships at the Exchange.

HSE and Moscow Exchange have been collaborating for a decade. The Exchange staff deliver lectures and conduct workshops at the university; students carry out internships at the exchange, and student conferences are organized on its premises. Now, this cooperation is being institutionalized as a joint department.

‘Our aim in creating this joint department was to achieve a synergetic effect: to bring theoreticians together with practicing professionals, so that the HSE academic staff work can together with the exchange experts’, explained Nikolay Berzon,  the department’s academic supervisor and tenured professor at HSE. ‘They will combine their efforts in creating and delivering the courses for the students. Such an approach will make teaching more structured. We’ll be avoiding situations when practicing professionals come and speak to students about a case they have already covered, or try to impart knowledge that the students are not yet ready to tackle’.

According to Nikolay Berzon, 95% of his graduates go into business, which means that it’s essential for HSE to produce professionals who are competitive in this field directly after graduation. Employers often lament the fact that they have to teach new employees to do certain things they haven’t learned at university. ‘In order to avoid this happening, we would like to involve professionals in the teaching. We will find out from them what we should add to our curricula’, the HSE tenured professor emphasized.

Anna Kuznetsova, Managing Director for Stock Markets at Moscow Exchange, who will head the new department, spoke about Moscow Exchange’s interest in closer cooperation with the university: ‘When we hire staff, we see that even those who have experience in working with brokers have a hard time dealing with the specifics of the exchange. There is definitely a demand for experts in our field. We should be looking for human resources within Russia’.

The Exchange decided to put together a special course focusing on how the financial market infrastructures work in general. ‘Of course, we have taught our students about how specific parts of it work, but now we’ll bring these parts together to give them the bigger picture,’ Nikolay Berzon said. ‘This year, we trialed the course as an optional unit for master’s students, and it sparked a lot of interest. Starting from September, it will be offered to students as a core unit.’

In addition, both the exchange and the university are interested in attracting students to project activities. Previously, the exchange offered eleven project topics. It was expected that 30 to 40 students would express interest, however over 100 applications were received, and so places were offered on a competitive basis. As a result, teams of four or five students were formed, and these teams will be presenting the outcomes of their projects in late May.

The students will also have the opportunity to undertake internships in various departments at Moscow Exchange, and they will be among the first to know about vacancies. According to Nikolay Berzon, if the internship attracts five or six people, at least two or three stay on to work at the company.

‘As an employer, I can say with confidence that we choose the best of the best, and we take on very talented young people from HSE. They possess extensive knowledge in the field and are able to adapt to new environments easily’, said Anna Kuznetsova.