BSc in Finance

Who is it for?

Our finance courses are for students who want to progress with the knowledge and skills required for a successful career in the increasingly competitive world of global finance and banking.

The BSc Finance is for someone who knows they are interested in finance, and at this point would like to keep their eventual finance career options open. The skills you gain during your studies will equip you both for a career in finance or further, postgraduate study.

Objectives

Our three degrees in finance (Finance, Banking and International Finance, and Investment and Financial Risk Management) provide detailed knowledge of how financial markets work, how companies make investment, financing and acquisition decisions and how modern banks operate. If you are looking for a career in finance and weighing up which aspects of the field excite you the most, this course is for you.

This course will sharpen your understanding of the broad disciplines involved, from corporate finance to asset pricing, international finance to corporate governance. Throughout your studies, you’ll focus on quantitative methods, enabling you to understand the cutting-edge techniques in use today. In the second half of the degree, core modules allow you to create a bespoke degree that matches your own interests. As a result, you will gain a good understanding of financial markets, its activities, and its products.

The jobs in this field are both exciting and well paid. They demand intellectual rigour and commercial acumen, and by selecting this course, you too can prepare yourself with the skills and competencies these jobs require.

What will I learn?

On the undergraduate Finance programme, you will:

• Develop a strong knowledge of quantitative techniques
• Gain the ability to learn and adapt new techniques in any field of finance
• Understand how you can help senior management draft or deliver strategy
• Deepen your understanding of the various functions in a financial institution
• Become competent in conducting minimally supervised or independent research.

Year 1

The first year is common across all three of our finance courses, with students from the various disciplines studying together. This provides our students with a strong foundation for financial markets, banking, economics and quantitative methods. You will also gain an understanding of the tools used in applied investment analysis and enhance your mathematical, statistical and computing skills.

Core modules:

• Banking and financial institutions This module looks at key functions of a banking firm. The emphasis is on what differentiates banks from other financial institutions, as well as the information problems inherent in the banking industry. Participants will understand why financial intermediaries exist and their role/impact on the global economy.

• Business skills This module covers communication skills, cognitive skills, IT skills, and social skills. The module aims to provide an underpinning and understanding of a portfolio of key skills required in the business world to assist participants in their academic study and prepare them for their ensuing professional career.

• Finance and investment This module is an introductory course providing participants with a basic understanding of the financial analysis role in decision-making. More specifically, this module provides a basic level of the core principles of corporate finance, financial markets and investments.

• Introductory financial accounting This module focuses on the interpretation and use of financial accounting information as part of the effective operation of a business. Moreover, it looks at the principles that underlie financial accounting, the application of these principles in recording transactions and the preparation of financial statements.

• Macroeconomics This module looks at the macro aspects of economics such as market growth/cycles, measurement of aggregate activity, basic demand-side models of GDP determination, aggregate demand/supply, money in the economy, the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, fiscal policy and the public sector, balance of payments, FOREX and international trade.

• Mathematics for finance This module provides an introduction to the basic mathematical techniques used in finance to aid decision making, with illustrations to the relevant problems in finance. It gives you the mathematical foundations that are necessary for your second-year Finance and Financial Econometrics courses.

• Microeconomics This module looks at the micro aspects of economics such as resource allocation, demand-supply and price, consumer demand, production and costs, oligopoly versus monopoly, as well as the roots of market failure/success.

• Statistics for finance This module provides an underpinning and understanding of the basic statistical techniques used in finance to aid decision making. It delivers the statistical foundations necessary for the more advanced finance modules.

Year 2

The first half of your second year continues to be consistent across all three finance courses, to further develop your theoretical knowledge of finance, investment and accounting. You also study econometrics, which forms the basis of modelling and testing in finance.

Hence, you will gain a good understanding of the relationship between financial theory and empirical testing, and application of this knowledge to the appraisal of the empirical evidence in corporate finance and capital markets.

Two elective modules chosen from a wide range allow you to focus on areas relevant to your own interests and career aspirations, such as investment, finance and risk, accounting and real estate- enabling you to appreciate the usefulness of quantitative finance in today’s financial markets.

Core modules:

• Company valuation The module aims to provide the fundamentals for the valuation of publicly quoted and privately-owned companies. The course is highly participative and extensively uses real-world cases; it also covers ethical issues that arise in valuations.

• Corporate finance and valuation This module presents core corporate finance material, including topics such as company valuation and investment appraisal and examining questions including how should a firm set its dividend policy, from which sources should a company raise capital and how should companies decide on their acquisition strategy.

• Corporate risk management

• Derivatives The module aims to build on the earlier Introduction to Finance module and applies finance theories and models to derivative securities with the aim of understanding the characteristics of derivatives, the use of derivatives, and their pricing.

• Financial Econometrics This module aims to introduce participants to the fundamental econometric tools for empirical modelling, accustom them with applying these tools to estimation, statistical inference, and forecasting in financial markets; as well as to develop the necessary skills to critically interpret the results of such analysis.

• Intermediate financial accounting The course aims to develop a wider breadth of accounting knowledge and the ability to understand accounting information in the context of recognised accounting standards and prevailing legal requirements.

Elective modules:

• Asset management This course aims to provide a thorough understanding of the issues that are relevant to the asset management industry, with special emphasis on understanding and measuring investment performance. The focus is on mutual funds, hedge funds and exchange-traded funds.

• Bank risk management This module introduces the principal sources of financial risk faced by financial intermediaries and the main techniques used to monitor and measure these risks, with a special focus on market risk, credit risk and liquidity risk.

• Corporate law

• Economics of FOREX This module provides the framework for a theoretical analysis of operations and key issues in foreign exchange markets. It aims to develop the understanding of international financial markets and the role of exchange rates.

• Intermediate financial accounting 2 By completing this module, you should become competent in addressing accounting issues related to Business Combinations and have a solid understanding of the concepts and application of various intermediate financial accounting areas - including intangible assets, financial instruments, provisions and contingent assets/liabilities, deferred taxation - in conformity with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

• International banking This module aims to provide you with a theoretical and practical background of the current issues of international banking. In particular, the module covers the evolution, structure and strategic drivers of international banking; international banking markets; the kinds and functions of international banks; products and services of international banks; regulation and emerging trends.

• Management accounting

• Introduction to real estate investment

• Portfolio theory

• Risk analysis and modelling

Year 3

The third year develops your knowledge of corporate finance, governance, and international finance to an advanced level. You will also select five or six electives which will allow you to extend your knowledge of finance and the applications of mathematical models, enhance your understanding of the role of financial markets or focus on areas such as investment or accounting. As a result, you will be able to demonstrate a good knowledge of the major theoretical tools and theories of finance, and their relevance and application to theoretical and practical problems, their assumptions and weaknesses, and ability to propose alternatives.

As one of the electives, you may also undertake a dissertation in a financial subject relevant to your interests and career aspirations.

Core modules:

• Corporate strategy This course examines several types of corporate reorganizations: mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, spin-offs, and divestitures, as well as reorganizations in financial distress situations through private workouts and bankruptcy. Particular emphasis is placed on linking conceptual tools and institutional environments to real business decisions.

• Mergers and acquisitions This course aims to provide a thorough understanding of the blend of strategic and financial concepts applied to M&A, but more importantly a recognition of the impact of corporate restructurings on organisations and people. At the end of the course, students will be able to form their own views about M&A and be prepared to make their own creatively strategic and analytically supportable recommendations regarding potential M&A transactions.

Elective modules:

• Final year project

• Banking regulation

• Financial services regulation

• Monetary economics

• Fixed income portfolio management

• International finance

• Advanced financial accounting: Theory and practice

• Asset-liability management

• Bank strategy and management

• Corporate social responsibility

• Emerging markets

• Financial engineering

• Real estate finance and funding

• Technical analysis

• Business forecasting

• General insurance

Entry requirements

A-Level: AAA (or AAB with a relevant EPQ)

BTEC/OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Extended Diploma: DDD

For candidates taking a combination of A Level/BTEC/OCR Cambridge Technical qualifications we accept the following:

• BTEC/OCR Cambridge Technical Diploma with one A-Level

• BTEC/OCR Cambridge Technical Subsidiary Diploma with two A-levels.

Extended Project Qualification (EPQ): We welcome applications that include the EPQ. Where relevant, this may be included in our offer, resulting in an ‘A’ Level offer reduced by one grade

IB: 35 points overall, with 5 minimum in each subject.

In addition, we also ask for the following GCSE requirement:

• A minimum of grade 5 (C) in GCSE English and grade 6 (B) ('A' Level and Access to Higher Education applicants) or grade 7 (A) (all other qualification combinations) in GCSE Mathematics.

If you are studying General Studies, Critical Thinking or a native language 'A' level, these subjects will not be included in any offer condition.

English language requirements

If your first language is not English, we will require evidence of English language proficiency. Minimum requirements are:

IELTS: 6.5 with a minimum of 6 in any unit

PTE Academic: 58 overall with a minimum of 51 in each component

GCSE: English language grade 5

Placements

A key part of a Cass degree is the opportunity to gain professional work experience. BSc Finance students are eligible to undertake an optional one-year paid work placement during the third year of a four-year sandwich degree programme.

The experience of working for a leading institution can be invaluable in terms of your future career. It will enable you to acquire skills and competencies sought by graduate employers, give you an edge over the competition, apply the theory you have studied and develop a network of contacts.

Our reputation, achievements and successful graduates have helped us to develop close relationships with a diverse range of companies, who recognise that Cass students can add significant value to their workforce. Our dedicated Placement team are in regular contact with these and many more companies and will support students throughout the work experience process.

City, University of London is a special place. With skill and dedication, we have been using education, research and enterprise to transform the lives of our students, our community and the world for over a hundred years.

Academic excellence for business and the professions

We are a leading international institution and we are committed to academic excellence and focused on business and the professions.

A highly rated institution

We are proud of the quality of our education, research and enterprise and of our high rankings in recent surveys. City is:

• in the top 15 in the UK for graduate prospects ( The Times and Sunday Times University League Table 2017 )
• 27th in the UK in the ( Times Higher Education ) 'Table of Tables' alongside leading Russell Group universities

World-leading research

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 , an exercise to assess research quality at all UK higher education research institutions, rated 75.7% of City's submissions as being of world-leading 4 (23.3%) and internationally excellent 3 (52.4%) quality.

A vibrant international community

Our outlook is truly global. We welcome students, academics and professional staff from all around the world, work to international levels of research excellence and cultivate a growing network of international research partnerships.

Central London location

We are located in the heart of London , within easy reach of several central Underground stations and just a few stops from the British Library and the West End. We are minutes away from the Square Mile - London's world-famous financial district - and the headquarters of financial and professional institutions, major arts complexes and media offices, teaching hospitals and specialist medical research centres.

Since our foundation over a century ago, we have always enjoyed deep-rooted links with the City of London. The Lord Mayor of London is the Rector of City and many City of London livery companies are long-standing supporters of City.