A specialist provider for finance leadership
The academically rigorous route to understanding how financial markets work, and how fintech, brokerage and financial-services businesses are built, managed and governed.
Company and vision
Breathing Fish University is planned as a private education services provider in the Dubai Knowledge Park free zone, United Arab Emirates, seeking a permit from Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA). It would provide degree-level education in finance and trading online, initially for around 300 students a year.
Our mission is to offer motivated people a rigorous, university-validated route from an interest in markets to a professional finance and trading qualification. The online format makes higher education accessible to people from diverse backgrounds and locations, fitting their lives at a relatively affordable cost without compromising academic rigour. This is education akin to formal on-campus study, not an unaccredited “trading academy”.
Beyond the classroom
We plan one-to-one career advice, work placements, volunteering, Employability Awards, a Careers and Placement Hub, and an alumni network.
Community initiatives are planned to include a partnership with the UAE Cricket Team, alumni events and International Women’s Day events.
Careers and communityWho does what
The university would be your institution and awarding body. Breathing Fish University would be the commissioning and delivery partner. Students from the EU/EEA are handled by the university; students from outside the EU/EEA by us.
| Task | The university | Breathing Fish University |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum | Approves; responsible faculty owns it | Proposes and develops content |
| Admission | Sets criteria; decides every admission | Recruits; prepares verified application files |
| Marketing | Approves all information | Runs marketing and recruitment |
| Learning material | Reviews and approves; may author | Authors and maintains |
| Platform, AI assistant, trading lab | Sets requirements | Provides and operates |
| Live seminars | Teachers in charge; approves guest lecturers | Logistics; industry practitioners |
| Examinations | Sets papers; marks; decides grades | Runs exam centres and identity checks; may mark delegated parts |
| Thesis | Supervises and assesses | Arranges employer commissions and industry mentors |
| Student records and degree certificate | The university | – |
| Student support | Academic counselling; complaints and appeals | First-line helpdesk |
| Fees | Invoices Breathing Fish University (or a commissioning employer) | Sets and collects student tuition |
We can perform every operational task; the university chooses which tasks it allows us to perform for it.
Two regulatory systems, one standard
United Arab Emirates
- Planned Dubai Knowledge Park free-zone commercial licence for an education activity.
- Planned KHDA educational services permit, and academic authorisation from KHDA’s University Quality Assurance International Board (UQAIB), which validates that delivery matches the awarding university’s home standards.
- UAE recognition of online foreign degrees follows the Ministry of Education’s conditional rules. This matters if you seek UAE public-sector employment: graduates may face equivalency issues for UAE government jobs.
Finland and Europe
- The awarding university owns academic standards under Finnish law and its own quality system, audited by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC).
- Delivery follows the European Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance (ESG), ECTS and the Finnish and European qualifications frameworks.
- Modules are approved through the university’s curriculum process and cannot be materially changed without its approval.
Assessment integrity
In-person exams at partner centres, identity checks, the university’s rules on similarity detection, AI use and responsible conduct of research, published academic misconduct procedures, and rights of rectification and appeal.
Separation from financial firms
Coursework is walled off from any financial firm’s promotions. There are no inducements to trade, trading happens only in simulated environments, and an annual independent compliance audit checks the boundary between education and financial services.
Transparency. This website and our terms will disclose module and programme information, contact hours, assessment, progression rights, fees, exam-centre obligations and the conditions for onward master’s study. Published information is treated as pre-contract information, and material changes follow a published procedure, with your consent where required.
Academic judgement, independent of commercial management
Board of Directors
The governing body, responsible for strategy and regulatory compliance. Planned to include two independent non-executive directors: one with higher-education governance experience and one with audit or financial-services experience.
Academic Advisory Board
Chaired by the Academic Director, with external academic members. Holds final delegated authority over admissions standards, assessment outcomes, misconduct and progression, with a codified guarantee of academic freedom. Commercial management cannot overrule academic judgements.
Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee
Chaired by an independent director. Reviews performance twice a year, shares findings with the university and commissions an annual independent compliance audit.
Student protection
Planned rolling five-year financial forecasts and going-concern reporting, ring-fenced teach-out reserves, a published student protection plan and exam-centre contingency arrangements.
Terms used on this site
| ECTS | European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System |
| ESG | Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area |
| FINEEC | Finnish Education Evaluation Centre |
| GCC | Gulf Cooperation Council |
| IELTS | International English Language Testing System |
| KHDA | Knowledge and Human Development Authority (Dubai) |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol, the standard used to connect AI assistants to our systems |
| MSc | Master of Science |
| TNE | Transnational education: education delivered in a country other than the awarding institution’s |
| UQAIB | University Quality Assurance International Board (Dubai) |