University pulls plug on degree in banking

NOT so long ago they were the pin-striped, power-lunching Masters of the Universe. Now even estate agents and petty criminals are permitted to look down their noses at them.

And things are going from bad to worse. Bankers now have such a poor reputation that one Scottish university has scrapped a Masters degree in the subject after only one year.

Edinburgh Napier University launched an MSc in professional banking in 2009 but, after attracting only a handful of students, the authorities have pulled the plug on this year's course.

With the intention of creating a new generation of Sir Fred Goodwins, the course fees were a relatively affordable 2,250. Napier hoped to attract as many as 30 students a year to the course but only eight applicants signed up for last year's "pilot" course.

A spokesman for the university insisted last year's crop of students had found the course "extremely interesting and rewarding".

But he added: "For every postgraduate programme we offer, we need a certain number of students to make the course economically viable."

The university is working with the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland (CIOBS) to explore the possibility of relaunching the course this autumn.

But Simon Thompson, chief executive of CIOBS, appeared to blame Napier University - rather than the reputation of the industry - for the lack of interest in the course.

He said: "Napier has not been successful in advertising the course. The difficulty with Napier is that they have no track record with that subject area. As an institute we had a record number of students. I suspect that Napier's resources are focused elsewhere."

A spokesman for the British Bankers' Association insisted that despite the financial crisis, there was still huge interest in the banking profession.

He added: "There are banking courses that are still seeing a steady stream of applicants coming through. Around 426,000 people are directly employed in banking across the UK."