What is financial engineering and its uses?

Financial engineering is the use of mathematical techniques to solve financial problems. Financial engineering uses tools and knowledge from the fields of computer science, statistics, economics and applied mathematics to address current financial issues as well as to devise new and innovative financial products. Financial engineering is sometimes referred to as quantitative analysis and is used by regular commercial banks, investment banks, insurance agencies and hedge funds.

Financial engineering has led to the explosion of derivative trading that we see today. Since the Chicago Board Options Exchange was formed in 1973 and two of the first financial engineers, Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, published their option pricing model, trading in options and other derivatives has grown dramatically.