MASTER IN FINANCE
The Bridge to an International Financial Career
About the master
Master in Finance, Insurance and Risk Management (MaFirm)
About the master
The Master prepares for a career in highly-skilled jobs in the financial industry. The MaFirm is an upper level master of the ESOMAS Department at the University of Torino since 1998. Our graduates use their advanced quantitative finance and econometrics skills in asset management, banks, insurers, hedge funds, consulting firms and major corporations. Such skills also open up opportunities in institutions like central banks, regulators, sovereign wealth funds and sovereign organizations. The outstanding academic background provided by the program also allows graduate students fast-track access to PhD programs in finance.
- Davide Alfonsi (Head Of Risk Management, Intesa Sanpaolo)
- Fabio Bagliano (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Torino and Cerp)
- Bernardo Bortolotti (University of Torino and Director, Sovereign Investment Lab)
- Paolo Brandimarte (Polytechnic University of Torino)
- Matthijs Breugem (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
- Michel Dacorogna (Scientific Advisor At SCOR)
- Elsa Fornero (University of Torino and Director, Cerp)
- Silverio Foresi (Goldman Sachs New York)
- Pietro Garibaldi (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Torino)
- Elisa Luciano Collegio Carlo Alberto (University of Torino and LTI)
- Roberto Marfè (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Torino)
- Paolo Montiferrari (Head Of Risk Managment), Banca Patrimoni Sella & C
- Toti Musumeci (University of Torino)
- Giovanna Nicodano (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Torino, Cerp, EGCI and Netspar)
- Luca Regis (University of Torino And LTI)
- Maria Cristina Rossi (On Leave) (Collegio Carlo Alberto, University of Torino, Cerp and Netspar)
- Guido Antonio Rossi (University of Torino)
- Giorgio Spriano (Chief Risk Officer, Intesa Sanpaolo)
- Davide Tinelli (Ceo, Fondaco Sgr S.P.A.).
- A selected Faculty from leading universities, alongside the experience of finance and banking professionals.
- Everyday contact with the scholars and researchers of Collegio Carlo Alberto and access to the scientific activities and events hosted at the Collegio.
- Merit-based tuition waivers offered by our sponsors.
- Career days and an outstanding network of our Alumni.
- A New FinTech Sequence, alongside the traditional Quantitative Finance backbone.
- The award of a second level Master in Finance, Insurance, and Risk Management degree from the University of Torino.
- A fast track access to PhD Programmes in Finance (see placement).
Awards and Rankings
With the support of
Educational Partners
Academic agreements
Placement
Placement record for previous graduates is excellent. It includes a variety of firms, banks, and organizations in the financial industry.
INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES AND BANKS
Abalolone Asset Management, AIB Bank, Allianz Bank, Amundi , BNP Paribas, Consob, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Suisse Zurich, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, EY, Financial Risk Centre, Goldman Sachs, Fitch Ratings, Iason, JP Morgan Luxembourg, KPMG, Oliver Wyman, Poste Vita, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Royal Bank of Scotland, State Street Bank, UBS Zurich.
ITALIAN INDUSTRIES AND BANKS
Banca del Piemonte, Banca Mediolanum, Banca Patrimoni Sella, Compagnia di San Paolo, Enel, Ferrero Spa Finance, Fiat Finance, Fondaco, Generali Assicurazioni, Intesa Sanpaolo, Prometeica, Reale Mutua, Toyota Material Handling Italia, UBI, Unicredit, Unipol SAI.
ACADEMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL
Banca d'Italia, Bank of England, Bocconi (PhD), Cass Business School (PhD), EDHEC Nice (PhD), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Central Bank, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (PhD), IESE (PhD), INSEAD (PhD), Macedonia Ministry of Finance, SFI Leman (PhD in Finance), University of Verona (PhD in Finance).
Admission
Applicants hold (or are going to hold by December) a degree in either Economics, Finance, Maths, Engineering, Statistics, Physics, Data Sciences, or Computer Sciences.
Students with advanced undergraduate degrees (e.g., the Italian laurea magistrale or vecchio ordinamento, a 4-year Bachelor, or 3+2-year undergraduate degrees) will receive both the II-level Master of the University of Torino and the Master of the Collegio Carlo Alberto. Students that do not qualify for a II-level Master (e.g., 3-year Bachelor holders) can be admitted, but they will receive only the Master of the Collegio Carlo Alberto.
Application for Academic Year 2025/2026 are open.
Next deadline: February 14, 2025
A substantial number of merit-based partial and full tuition fee waivers are available.
Percentage of admitted students that received a tuition fee waiver amounting to more than 50% of the tuition fee in the last 3 Academic Years: 79%.
For further information please call +39 011 15630820 / +39 011 15630828 or write to Federica Gai / Irma Evola.
Auditors with suitable background may attend individual courses. There is no application deadline for auditors.
ADMISSION
Annual tuition fees for the Master's program are €15,000. They are comprehensive of course material, use of the Collegio and University facilities, access to on-campus seminars, to the Library and online databases of the Collegio and University.
A number of full and partial tuition fee waivers will be awarded to applicants for financial aid, according to the admission ranking. Students can also finance their participation through students' loans.
PART-TIME AUDITORS
A fee of €1,000 is charged for each course.
Merit-Based Tuition Waivers
INPS SCHOLARSHIPS
INPS offers scholarships to children of public employees and public retirees, to civil servants, and to orphans. The scholarships cover the total cost of the Master. For further information please call +39 011 15630820 or write to Federica Gai.
Program
COURSE PROGRAM
FOUNDATIONS AND FINTECH
Mathematics for Finance
Paolo Brandimarte (Politecnico di Torino)
Probability theory and Stochastic Calculus
Marina Marena (Università di Torino)
Asset Pricing
Matthijs Breugem (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Programming - Coding in Python
Valerio Bioglio (Università di Torino)
Introductory Mathematics and Probability
Amir Khorrami Chokami (Università di Torino)
Machine Learning
Roberto Esposito (Università di Torino)
Mirko Polato (Università di Torino)
Applied Machine Learning
Roberto Esposito (Università di Torino)
Mirko Polato (Università di Torino)
COMMON TRACK
Financial Econometrics I
Ivan Petrella (Università di Torino)
Derivatives
Claudio Tebaldi (Bocconi University)
Fixed Income and Credit Risk
Gianluca Fusai (Università del Piemonte Orientale Amedeo Avogadro)
Market and Liquidity Risk
Dario Brandolini (DB&B Consulting)
Optimization Methods for Machine Learning and Quantitative Finance
Paolo Brandimarte (Politecnico di Torino)
ESG Investing
Luca Regis (Università di Torino)
FINANCE TRACK
Credit Derivatives
Claudio Zucca (European Investment Bank Lussemburgo)
Decentralized Finance and Python Applications
Lorenzo Schoenleber (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Financial Econometrics II
Massimiliano Caporin (Università di Padova)
Quantitative Asset Allocation
Ugo Pomante (Università di Roma Tor Vergata)
Term Structures of Equity
Roberto Marfé (Collegio Carlo Alberto and Università di Torino)
INSURANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT TRACK
Life Insurance
Anna Maria Olivieri (Università di Parma)
Non-Life Insurance
Katrien Antonio (Ku Leuven)
Solvency II
Jan Dhaene (Ku Leuven)
Risk Management in Insurance
Luca Bardini (Intesa Sanpaolo RBM Salute)
Hedging Strategies for Segregated Funds
Vincenzo Russo (Generali)
PROFESSIONAL COURSES
Algorithmic Trading
Matteo Rolle (Banca Sella), Roberto Caloi (Banca Sella)
Financial Applications of Unsupervised Machine Learning
Gabriele D'Acunto (CENTAI)
Machine Learning for Asset Allocation with Python
Giovambattista Perciaccante (Brevan Howard)
Operational Risk Management
Giulio Mignola (Intesa SanPaolo)
Rating and Stress Tests
Marco Stella (Prometeia)
Treasury Risk Management
Massimo Pedroni (Prometeia)
Solutions for Risk Management
Paolo Montiferrari (Banca Patrimoni Sella & C)
Systemic Risk Management
Nicola Borri (LUISS Guido Carli)
Stock Markets Behaviour: Myth and Reality. How to manage an equity portfolio
Luca Martina (Banca Patrimoni Sella & C)
Asset Allocation Fundamentals
Viviana Gisimundo (Amundi Asset Management)
Forecasting Techniques and Systematic Approaches to Asset Allocation
Eugenio Raiteri (Ersel), Andrea Nocifora (Ersel)
Hedge Funds and Alternatives
Luca Vaiani (Fideuram Investimenti SGR)
Robo-Advising and FinTech Innovations in Wealth Management
Raffaele Zenti (AdviseOnly)
Impact Investments
Cor H.J. Dücker (Erasmus Capital Partners)
IT for Financial Institutions
Domenico Fileppo (Intesa SanPaolo)
Banking, Law and Regulation
Jacopo Carmassi (LUISS Guido Carli), Davide Alfonsi (Intesa SanPaolo)
Private Markets Investing
Gabriele Balagna (Caia)
Investment Banking For Global Markets
Marco Tuninetti (Credit Swiss Investment Bank, Milano)
Calendar
ACADEMIC CALENDAR 2024/25
Foundations
| Classes | September 2 - October 31 |
| Exam session | November 4 - November 15 |
Common Track
| Classes | November 18 - January 17 |
| Exam session | January 20 - February 2 |
| Holiday, classes suspended |
November 1 December 24 - January 6 |
Finance Track
| Classes | February 10 - April 11 |
| Exam session | April 14 - May 2 |
| Holiday, classes suspended |
March 29-April 2, April 25, May 1 |
Insurance Track
| Classes | February 10 - April 11 |
| Exam session | April 14 - May 2 |
| Holiday, classes suspended |
April 21 and April 25, May 1st |
Professional Courses
| Classes | May 5 - June 27 |
| No exams |
Please note: The calendar is subject to change
Testimonials
Andrea Andolfatto
Bocconi University - Milan, Graduated in 2022
My academic background is in Economics; I hold a MSc in Quantitative Finance. I applied to Mafirm to deepen my knowledge in Finance and further my career. From the first day, the faculty guided me by addressing my doubts and helped me choose the career path that would best suit me. I also enjoyed the small class size and treasure the friendships I made. The faculty at Mafirm provided me both with connections to the industry and with the necessary preparation and information to successfully obtain fellowships during the Ph.D. application process. I am currently a Ph.D. student in Finance at Bocconi University in Milan.
Veronica Cannas
KPMG Germany - Frankfurt am Main, Graduated in 2021
I studied Quantitative Finance at University of Tor Vergata, Rome. I applied to the Master in Finance, Insurance and Risk Management at Collegio Carlo Alberto because of the renowned placement skills and because I found the study program very interesting and able to complete my preparation. The most interesting part of the Mafirm program were the group work and the individual projects that we completed during the master, which helped me to translate theory into practice and to further develop myanalytical and problem-solving skills. After I graduated at the CCA in July 2021, in August 2021 I started to work as an Associate (full-time) in the Riskand Treasury department of KPMG Germany, in the Frankfurt office. The CCA really helped me to do interviews with several companies, in Italy and abroad, both organizing job fairsand thanks to professors (in my case Professor Schoenleber, who taught us the applied course “Python for Finance”) using their existing network to send out our CVs.
Giulia Carbotti
European Central Bank - Frankfurt am Main, Graduated in 2021
My name is Giulia Carbotti and I am currently a Financial Risk Analyst at the European Central Bank. After an undergraduate degree in Finance and a Master of Science in Finance & Banking at the University of Tor Vergata (Rome), I attended the Master in Finance and Risk Management at Collegio Carlo Alberto in the academic year 2020 – 2021. I decided to apply to the MAFIRM program because I felt that it would help me to choose the right path for my career and to pursue it; and in fact, MAFIRM provided me with a strong support to explore my career options and to undertake them (e.g. via career days and network creation), along with a very qualifying combination of theoretical, practical, and professional courses. It helped me to understand that I wanted to work in the risk management area of the Eurosystem, and indeed after finishing my studies there I became a trainee in Risk Management at the European Central Bank, in Frankfurt am Main.
Luigi Cardillo
Fincite - Frankfurt am Main, Graduated in 2021
I started being interested in financial markets after an internship as a commodity derivatives trader before starting university. After my graduation, I was dreaming to be a systematic trader or portfolio manager. I felt that I needed not only to get deeper in computing, mathematics, and statistics but also to get led through the complexity of financial markets. I thought that the Collegio Carlo Albero was the ideal place to get what I was looking for. The MAFIRM enabled me to understand which are the most interesting and new challenges in the financial industry and gave me the tools to start and define the first steps in my journey to become a systematic portfolio manager. The professors and colleagues were amazing. I must mention in particular Professor Brandimarte and Professor Schoenleber who helped me a lot in searching for a job. The whole faculty has been concretely open to suggestions. Professor Marfe` guided us through the opportunities in academics and the Ph.D. path. Professors Tebaldi, Brandimarte, Pomante, and Brandolinigave us good hints for effective interview preparation. I started my career as a Quantitative Researcher, working on systematic investing strategies based on deep learning. It was a full-time position in a young fintech, Qi4m. Now I am a Quantitative Researcher at Finite, in Frankfurt am Main. Here I work on developing algorithms, mathematical models, and artificial intelligence applications for asset management.
Sara D'Ecclesiis
Poste Vita - Rome, Graduated in 2023
Following my completion of a Master's degree in Economics and Finance at LUISS University, I engaged in a year-long traineeship in Banking Supervision at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. While it provided invaluable experience in an international setting, I opted to pursue the Master in Finance, Insurance, and Risk Management by Collegio Carlo Alberto and University of Turin, influenced by the recommendations of two former students employed at the ECB. This program served as a unique opportunity to enhance my quantitative and coding skills, surrounded by bright individuals from diverse backgrounds. Subsequent to completing the master's program, I secured a permanent position as an Investment Analyst at Poste Vita in Rome.
Giuseppe Florio
UBS - Zurich, Graduated in 2022
After obtaining my Master's degree in Finance at the University of Trento, and following a brief professional experience in a consulting firm, I decided to enroll in the Mafirm offered by the Collegio Carlo Alberto, eager to further develop my knowledge of Quantitative Finance and Programming. Collegio’s course program is very challenging but provides a solid foundation in quantitative finance and the main programming languages used in the financial industry today. What I particularly appreciate about the program is the fact that each course, in addition to providing a theoretical overview of the topics covered, includes practical application in Matlab, Python, or R, which allows you to master skills that are highly sought after by companies today. Attending the Mafirm was an important step toward finding a job in the increasingly competitive and ever-changing environment that is the financial industry. Today, I work as a Risk Modeling & Analytics Specialist at UBS in the Zurich office.
Daniele Plutino
Goldman Sachs - London, Graduated in 2022
I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in Rome Sapienza and a MSc in Mathematical Engineering in Turin Politecnico. I decided then to apply for the Mafirm at CCA to study how mathematics can be applied in the context of finance. The application was made after a suggestion by Prof. Brandimarte who was supervising my MSc thesis. The thing I liked the most was sharing this experience with amazing students from different academic backgrounds: that allowed us to always have different perspectives on the same topic and therefore discussions were always interesting. After the Mafirm I started a full-time position in Goldman Sachs London office as a Quantitative Strategist.
Vittorio Ruffo
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Graduated in 2022
I studied quantitative finance at the University of Verona, where I got a master's degree in banking and finance. During the second year of my master's degree, I became aware that I wanted to further explore what I had studied up to that point. By comparing myself with colleagues and doctoral students who had followed a similar path as me, I began to learn about the MAFIRM offered by Collegio Carlo Alberto. I applied with the idea of deepening my study further, before pursuing a doctoral degree. An appealing feature of the Master's program concerns the topics covered. Having a few programming and machine learning courses alongside the more classical finance subjects allows students to get a more comprehensive preparation. I recently joined the doctoral program in finance offered by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. The professors at the Collegio Carlo Alberto were immediately very helpful in providing me with precise information regarding the admission procedure, the structure, the difficulties, and the possibilities that a doctorate entails. Although I was already intent on pursuing this path, being able to ask the professors for help was crucial in orienting me in this process with which I was completely unfamiliar, especially in terms of where to undertake the program.