Finance

• Head of Department of Finance: Professor Gareth Campbell
• BSc Finance Programme Director: Professor Gareth Campbell (interim)
• BSc Actuarial Science and Risk Management Programme Director: Neil McConville
• MSc Accounting and Finance Programme Director: Dr Bibek Bhatta
• MSc Finance Programme Director: Dr Philip Fliers
• MSc Financial Analytics Programme Director: Dr Fearghal Kearney
• MSc Risk and Investment Management Programme Director: Dr Yerzhan Tokbolat
• MSc Actuarial Science Programme Director: Dr Mark Farrell

Our supportive research environment fosters meaningful engagement with the non-academic world and facilitates the pursuit of high-quality publications. Research by colleagues in our Department of Finance has appeared in leading peer-reviewed scholarly journals including the Review of Financial Studies, Review of Finance, and Journal of Corporate Finance. 

An active community of doctoral students are exploring the world of modern-day and historical finance in the Department of Finance. PhD students benefit from attending courses and tailor-made reading groups, and have access to the School's seminar series, which attracts leading global academics.

Veronica Zhang is in the final year of her PhD researching researching the impact of banking regulations on bank credit risk, efficiency and systemic risk.

• Read about Veronica's experience so far
• More information on our PhD in Finance

The Finance and Artificial Intelligence Research lab (FAIR) is a cross-disciplinary initiative within the Department of Finance at Queen’s Business School. It intends to provide innovative leadership for Northern Ireland's financial technology ecosystem as a pivotal point between the UK, the US and the EU.

FAB's mission includes leveraging digital technology to promote innovation in local fintech and producing high-level international research in finance, technology, and AI, including AI safety, risk management, and financial regulation.

To develop research, staff and students have access to Bloomberg terminals in the FinTrU Trading Room, a market leader of financial news, data and analytics. This is also supported with access to S&P Global, DataStream Advance, Thomson One Analytics, Wharton Research Data Services, and the Financial Times Online.

The Finance Group also runs the Queen’s Student Managed Fund (QSMF) which manages a real-money investment portfolio of £50,000.

Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts, and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, Dr Will Quinn and Professor John Turner published 'Boom and Bust', a history of financial bubbles to help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. 

Read the Financial Times review of 'Boom and Bust'.

Research on historical financial crises by Professor John Turner uses the past to help shed light on why banking crises happen and what we can do to prevent them in the future. This research has impacted on policy-making, professional practice, and historical awareness and knowledge of staff at the Bank of England. It has also impacted the non-academic study of business history and has reached tens of thousands of financial analysts.

Read more on making banking crisis-proof.

Research led by Professor Donal McKillop has played a key role in shaping a transformation of the Irish credit union sector, guiding the introduction of a strengthened regulatory framework to promote financial stability and offering diversification opportunities for credit unions.

Read more on the transformation of the Irish credit union sector.