Funded by the University Grants Commission under the innovative and interdisciplinary teaching programmes at the end of the X Five Year Plan, the course offers a combination of subjects of the MBA programme with specialisation in banking technology.

"It has all components of MBA, with specialisation in technology for banking, finance and insurance services. It basically aims at creating manpower for technology management," says K. Chandra Sekhara Rao, Head, Department of Banking Technology of Pondicherry University.

The post-graduate course has 30 seats, which would be increased to 46 from the coming academic year on implementation of the OBC quota.

Admission is open to engineering graduates in streams such as Information Technology, Computer Science, ECE, EEE, and Instrumentation and Control, and graduates of B.Sc. Computer Science, Bachelor in Computer Applications, B.Com. with Computer Applications elective and any degree with university-recognised Post-Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications.

A blend of finance, management, information technology and banking, the course curriculum covers principles of management and functional specialisations, specialised subjects to manage banks and financial institutions and advanced domain-specific IT subjects.

The subjects include Indian banking and financial system, bank management, insurance and risk management, information systems, management of banking and financial institutions, security analysis, banking technology and management, computer networks for bankers, IT infrastructure management, stock market investments, information security and information system audit and object-oriented modelling design. Each semester has two lab sessions including internship at commercial banks, stock broking and Forex trading firms and project work. "This semester, we introduced electives in technology such as cyber laws, IT laws and cyber crimes, e-commerce, Internet trading and smart banking technology," says Prof. Rao.

The programme is primarily aimed at meeting the domain-specific manpower requirements of IT and software companies involved in developing software solutions for large Indian and international banking and financial institutions such as TCS, CTS, Polaris, Wipro and HCL. Moreover, it looks at meeting the requirements of technology management positions in banks, stock exchanges, finance companies and financial institutions.

"We recorded 100 per cent placement for the first batch in 2007 and the second batch in 2008," says the professor. The students can choose among banking, technology, stock market, information security, finance and business intelligence for jobs.

The faculty members of the department say the students, on completion of the course, could become business analysts in IT companies. Moreover, banks have data centres in which the students can be employed as data centre managers, information security heads and technology managers or in the networking arena for IT infrastructure management.

Students could submit their applications by April 30. Online applications are available. A written test followed by group discussion and personal interview would be held for admission.