It was opened on 2 March 1919, and its first rector was Dmitry Bogolepov [ru] – the Moscow State University graduate, the Deputy People's Finance Commissar of RSFSR.

[18] On 4 March 2011, KPMG opened its own department at the university to enhance cooperation based on lectures and practical activities covering audit, International Financial Reporting Standards, taxation and corporate finance.

[citation needed] The system of higher education established at Finance University includes: Admission requirements are among the highest in Russia.

These include both fundamental and applied research in the areas of finance, money circulation and credit, insurance, accounting and audit, business evaluation, international monetary relations; research done for post doctoral and PhD dissertations; development of expert-and-analytical materials requested by the bodies of legislative and executive power; organisation of scientific events (conferences, seminars, "roundtables", etc.).

[23] It also had the 5th highest number of national Olympiad winners and prizewinners admitted without exams (after HSE, ITMO, MIPT and MSU).

[24] The university became the competition winner "Golden Medal "European Quality" in the category of "100 Best Institutions of Higher Education in Russia".

[38] The journal is abstracted and indexed in: Google Scholar,[39] Research Papers in Economics (RePEc),[40] EconPapers[41] – a service of Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), Scilit,[42] ResearchGate,[43] Scientific Electronic Library Cyberleninka,[44] RoBES is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals.

[46] 2023– present: Dr. Pavel S. Seleznev[47][48] 2013-2022: Dr. Alexander I. Ilyinsky ru:Ильинский, Александр Иоильевич[49] According to Google Scholar, the following three papers have been cited most frequently: Among the graduates are: Before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cutting of academic cooperation with Russia by a significant part of the international community, the Financial University had entered into over 17 new agreements with partner institutes of Australia, UK, Germany, Spain, China, United States, Czech Republic and other countries, including: Financial University is a member of the Russian Law Journal consortium.