Admission Requirements

Master's programme in Banking and Finance

Entry requirements

To be admitted to the master's programme in Banking and Finance students must have completed an eligible bachelor's programme or an eligible bachelor's programme at a university of applied sciences or an equivalent degree programme at a recognised Austrian or foreign post-secondary educational institution.

>> The admission procedure at the University of Vienna

Please note that for graduates from other universities or institutions the admission processing takes 12-16 weeks. Please register early enough to able to register for courses. Registration periods for courses in the winter term usually starts in the middle of September, for courses in the summer term in the middle of February and end one week before the semester starts (Oct 1st or March 1st).

Please find all admission requirements at the webpage of the University.

Applicants must demonstrate

Prior training in one or more of the following fields: business administration, economics, mathematics and statistics, comprising 30 ECTS credits, of which at least 8 ECTS credits must have been acquired in courses in mathematics and statistics.
Graduates from the bachelor's degree programmes in Business Administration, Business Informatics, Computer Science, Economics, International Business Administration, Mathematics, Statistics, at the University of Vienna fulfill these requirements. These requirements are also fulfilled by completing the two extension curricula "Quantitative Basics of Economics" (Quantitative Grundlagen der Volkswirtschaftslehre) and "Methods of Economics" (Methoden der Volkswirtschaftslehre) at the University of Vienna.
Sufficient command of English at Level B2 (C1 is recommended) of the European Framework of Reference for Languages. The regulations of the University of Vienna for the proof of the language level apply.
Achivement of at least
- 44 points in the "Quantitative Section" of the Graduate Management Admission Tests (GMAT)
  or
- 154 points in the section "Quantitative Reasoning" of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test
within the previous two years.

Mathematical and statistical ability

We encourage students with various backgrounds such as business, economics, statistics, mathematics, computer science, and physics to apply.

A sound background in mathematical and statistical tools is necessary. In particular, students need to have a working knowledge of

differential calculus for function of one variable and of several variables,
integral calculus for functions of one variable,
methods of optimization under constraints such as the method of Lagrange,
basics of linear algebra (vectors, matrix algebra),
probability and statistics (random variables, probability distributions).

Also basic knowledge of microeconomics is needed.

Professional experience

Candidates are not required to have previous work experience and this would not disadvantage them in any way.

Preparatory readings

I. Welch, Corporate Finance (4th ed.), 2017
(freely available introductory online textbook)
H. R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics (9th ed.), W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2014.
T. J. Watsham, K. Parramore, Quantitative Methods in Finance, International Thompson Business Press, 1997.
D. Ruppert, Statistics and Finance -- An Introduction, Springer, New York, 2004.
A. C. Chiang, Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics (4th ed),
McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 2005.
K. Binmore, J. Davies, Calculus: Concepts and Methods, Cambridge University Press, 2001.