This programme is designed to equip students with a general yet comprehensive education in a range of areas within International Banking Law. The course will enable students to master the following important aspects of the discipline: core attributes of a bank (credit institution), different types of banks (retail, commercial, private, etc), regulatory authorities in the UK (FSA, Bank of England and H.M. Treasury); some of the important EU/international banking entities, e.g. ECB, EIB, EBRD, the IMF, Federal Reserve and the World Bank; Authorisation and ‘passporting’ of credit institution activities within the EEA; Capital Adequacy principles/Basel III; the notion of insider trading and the Market Abuse Directive; the supervision of investment firms within the EU and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID); Money Laundering and the three anti-money laundering Directives; Islamic Finance and, lastly, Conflict of Laws in a banking/financial services context. Students will have a wide range of Banking Law options to choose from, and may therefore acquire broad as opposed to specialised knowledge.

Employment opportunities for graduates of the programme will include work with international law firms; banks or investment firms (as in-house counsel); specialised banks or central banks e.g. European Investment Bank, EBRD, the ECB (the EU’s central bank), the African Development Bank, the IMF and the World Bank; national financial regulatory authorities and international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, the European Union, international courts and tribunals, ‘think tanks’ and research centres, and government (eg. Ministry of Finance). Having taken one of our programmes, there will, of course, also be possibilities for academically inclined students to pursue careers in teaching and research.