Master of Applied Finance

Applied Finance at Macquarie runs through a five-unit core covering corporate finance, financial instruments, financial risk management, investments and a professional practice unit, then branches into one of four specialisations: Funds Management, Risk Management, Corporate Finance, or Instruments and Valuation, drawing on a pool of more than 30 elective units. That elective depth is unusually large for a finance master's and reflects the program's history as much as anything: it grew out of what's now the Macquarie Applied Finance Centre, a specialist unit within the Business School built specifically around finance practitioner education rather than finance being one specialisation inside a general MBA.

The degree is recognised by the CFA Institute, which for a program this finance-specific matters more directly than it would for a general MBA, since CFA recognition speaks to how closely the curriculum tracks the CFA's own body of knowledge in valuation, portfolio management and financial analysis. Less common electives in sustainable finance and resources, infrastructure and energy finance sit alongside the four core specialisations, which reflects Sydney's position as a hub for both green finance and natural resources project financing, giving students in those tracks a genuinely local industry pipeline rather than an imported curriculum.

Given Macquarie's own history and its association with Macquarie Group (one of the world's largest specialist investment banks, no formal ownership link but a strong professional and reputational connection through name and alumni networks), the degree draws heavily on finance industry practitioners as guest lecturers and adjunct staff, which shapes it toward practitioner-oriented, market-relevant content over purely academic finance theory.