Originating from the Shanghai Banking School founded in 1952 and formerly affiliated with the People’s Bank of China, the School of Finance boasts a long-standing educational heritage. Its Finance and International Finance programs rank among the earliest finance-related majors established in New China, nurturing a large pool of high-caliber professionals now working across major financial institutions. Nestled within the Free Trade Zone and adjacent to Lujiazui, the School enjoys a prime geographic location, profound historical legacy, distinct industry features and prominent academic strengths. It serves the national strategies of building a strong financial nation, advancing the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and developing Shanghai into an international financial center.

The School has 130 faculty and staff members, including 101 full-time teachers: 10 professors and 48 associate professors, with 57 % holding senior professional titles; 87 % of teachers hold doctoral degrees; 41% have overseas study or educational backgrounds; and 90 % are dual-qualified teachers with both academic and industry credentials. Among its faculty are 1 recipient of the Special Government Allowance from the State Council, 1 Shanghai Leading Talent, 1 grantee of the Top-notch Project under the Oriental Elite Program, 2 grantees of the Youth Project under the Oriental Elite Program, 1 Dawn Scholar, 2 Pujiang Talents and 2 Chenguang Scholars. It is home to 2 Shanghai Excellent Teaching Teams and 2 Shanghai-level Model Teams for Curriculum-based Ideological and Political Education.

The School has been accredited as the Pilot Leading School for Key Reform of Curriculum-based Ideological and Political Education among Shanghai’s Institutions of Higher Education, the Model School for Comprehensive Reform of Three-Dimensional Holistic Education in Shanghai, and a Shanghai pilot unit for comprehensive reform of the moral education mechanism. It is also a member of the national “Strong-Country Initiative” special-action team for Party branch secretaries of university teachers who are both academic pacesetters and political trailblazers. Approved by the Ministry of Education, the School hosts the pilot Virtual Teaching-Research Section for Finance and the New-Finance Smart Learning Workshop. It takes the lead in establishing the Shanghai Yangtze River Delta Collaborative Innovation Center for Science Technology, Industry and Finance Services, and runs the Post-doctoral Innovation Practice Base in Pudong New Area, Shanghai.

Remarkable achievements have been made in disciplinary development and talent cultivation. With a history of over 70 years, the Finance major has successively been designated a National-level Distinctive Major, a Shanghai Higher-Education Highland, a Shanghai Pilot Major for Comprehensive Reform, and part of the Shanghai University Leading Initiative for First-class Undergraduate Programs. Both Finance and Financial Engineering are recognized as National-level First-class Undergraduate Major Development Sites. The School offers the Master of Finance professional degree, focusing on green finance, fintech and international finance to cultivate high-level applied financial professionals. It delivers 3 national-level first-class courses and more than 40 provincial-ministerial-level courses including Shanghai first-class courses, quality courses, key courses and model all-English courses. The School has repeatedly won the Shanghai First-class Teaching Achievement Award and the Shanghai Excellent Textbook Award. Finance is a Key Discipline of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. Applied Economics, anchored in Finance, is listed as a Class-B Cultivated First-class Discipline of Shanghai Institutions of Higher Education, and “New Finance and Its Risk Management” is designated a Class-II Shanghai Plateau Discipline. In recent years, the School has undertaken over 30 national-level research projects (including key projects of the National Social Science Fund and general projects of the National Natural Science Fund), more than 40 provincial-ministerial projects and over 100 horizontal projects. Faculty members have published more than 400 high-quality papers in Chinese and English language journals such as Journal of Financial Economics, and authored over 60 monographs and textbooks.

Upholding the talent-training philosophy of “integration of industry and education” and “equal emphasis on academic learning and practical experience”, the School advances pedagogical reforms driven by information technology. It has jointly launched the Pujiang Class with the Shanghai Branch of Agricultural Bank of China and the Special Experimental Class for Master of Finance with Guoyuan Securities Co., Ltd., furthering order-oriented talent training through university-bank cooperation. Together with Guosen Securities, it built the Lixin Investor-Education Base, a provincial-ministerial-level investor-education platform, to pioneer innovative university-securities-firm collaborative training models. It has established the Modern Industrial College of Science-Technology and Innovation Finance, more than 30 off-campus industry-university-research bases, and the Modern Finance Experimental Teaching Center, a Shanghai Municipal Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center. Students have won numerous national and provincial-ministerial awards in discipline competitions such as the “Challenge Cup” and “Internet +”.

Committed to open-door education, the School has signed cooperation agreements with multiple overseas universities including NEOMA Business School (France), Royal Holloway, University of London (UK), Curtin University (Australia), and University of Bradford (UK). In partnership with renowned domestic universities, it has initiated the China Financial Education Golden-Course Alliance and the Yangtze-River-Delta University Alliance for Financial Education to expand resource sharing and deepen exchanges and collaboration.