This essay seeks to establish whether financial economics and finance are synonymous. Can an economist teach finance, or a financier teach economics? The sample of the different plans in finance and banking of local private universities with respect to the plan offered by the University of Panama leads to the conclusion that academic degrees are not equivalent, since private institutions prepare students with an operational approach while the public university does so with an analytical approach. In addition, this essay can serve as a discussion paper for the reformulation of the academic structure of the Department of Economics in Financial and Banking Economics.