Quantitative Risk major

UNSW Mathematics and Statistics has taken the lead in setting up undergraduate education in Quantitative Risk. This emerging field deals with risk in the banking, financial and related areas, as Actuarial Studies does in life insurance. The Basel II compliance regime in banking has increased the demand for skills in the area.

The financial crisis of 2008 shows the urgent need for high-level skills in the evaluation of risk.

The School contributes a new core course, MATH2881 Quantitative Risk (2nd year undergraduate), and the School of Banking and Finance provides a new third year course on Behavioural Finance. A number of existing courses in actuarial studies, statistics, accountancy etc also go to make up the major.


The Quantitative Risk major (and the Advanced Science Advanced Mathematics plan) is a high-UAI major and is restricted to students with a UAI of 95 or higher and with excellent Mathematics Extension 2 marks. Top Extension 1 students may be considered.

Plan of the QR major

SAS and the CBA have agreed to help the School develop the new core course in Quantitative Risk. Other partners from the financial world are invited to contribute to the program, through sponsorship and the provision of course advice and visiting speakers. Prospective partners should contact Prof James Franklin.

There is an article on quantitative risk and UNSW's involvement in the March 2007 issue of Actuary Australia (pp. 10-11).

QR Event All associated with the QR program are invited to an informal event Wed 21 Oct 2008, 1pm, at UNSW. Prospective students welcome. Rsvp to j.franklin@unsw.edu.au

The Statistics Behind the Lottery

As Australians gear up for the biggest lottery of all time, Dr David Warton of UNSW's School of Mathematics and Statistics has already crunched the numbers, and the results are not as encouraging as most Australians would want them to be.

"The chance of winning from a game of Oz Lotto is about one in 45 million," states Dr Warton.

"To get a sense of how small that it, consider what would happen if I dumped two reams (1000 pages) of A4 paper onto every seat at the Sydney Cricket Ground and asked you to take a guess at which is the one 'winning' page out of the four truckloads of paper that I have scattered all around the SCG.

"What you have there is about a one in 45 million chance of winning -- and an awful mess.

"If I forgot where the winning page was and had to check each page individually to find it, it would probably take me over three years (closer to two years if I worked weekends)."

For more information, please see:

The Daily Telegraph

or

Science@UNSW

Good luck