Banking and Finance BSc (Hons)

Course overview

The UK’s financial market offers diverse career opportunities, attractive salaries and scope to work overseas.

Our course aims to give you a solid foundation and knowledge of banking and finance while enhancing your professional and employability skills, opening a broad range of potential career opportunities. Key topics include the operation of financial markets and banking, regulation, risk management, application of financial data and how financial institutions operate.

The January start for this course is condensed in Year 1. Please see the ‘How you’ll learn’ section below for more details.

Why you should study this course

By studying this course, you will have the opportunity to:

• gain knowledge about banking and the wider financial sector
  Learn about the operation of financial markets, banking and financial services, and understand and using financial data. You’ll also look to develop a wide range of other financial skills such as buying a property, preparing and analysing financial statements, valuing investments and bonds, and measuring banking risks.
• tailor your studies
  Our wide range of economics and finance courses share a common first year. This gives you the flexibility to decide the direction you want to take your degree after you have received a thorough grounding in economic and financial concepts, and principles.
• access our Trading Floor⁴
  This provides hands-on experience to work with market leading financial databases such as Thomson Reuters Eikon, Bloomberg, Fitch Connect and Refinitiv Datastream.
• access maths and statistics support
  Access maths and statistics support through drop-in sessions with experienced tutors⁴.
• put your skills into practice
  Prepare and analyse financial statements, as well as the study of the impact of finance on real businesses through case studies of a diverse range of organisations.

If you choose to start this course in January you will study exactly the same course but over a slightly shorter timescale in Year 1. This is ideal if you missed the September start, want to transfer from a different university or course or just need a bit more time to prepare for life at university.

Careers and opportunities

Upon successful completion, you will be able to:

• use a range of transferable skills, e.g. writing clear and concise reports based on evidence and logic, making effective use of information technology, and creative problem-solving.
• communicate technical banking and financial concepts in a clear manner to a range of relevant stakeholders.
• apply banking and financial theories and empirical methods to real-world scenarios.
• carry out an independent piece of research on a banking or finance topic using appropriate theories and analytical tools.
• understand the importance and relevance of personal finance and banking products and services to daily life.
• apply appropriate mathematical and quantitative techniques to solve business and financial problems.
• understand the importance of banks, their function in society, and ethics in banking and financial decisions.
• apply the key approaches to risk management in devising strategies to tackle practical issues and risks that confront modern banking. Understand the role of banking and financial regulators and how this impacts the performance and structure of banks and other financial institutions.

The course aims to give you the confidence to give sound financial advice and make effective financial decisions. You should be well placed to pursue a wide variety of potential future careers options in areas such as:

• finance
• banking
• management
• accounting
• personal and corporate finance
• business
• education in private, public and third sector organisations.

The Talent Team will also support you with workshops and guidance on the various aspects of the employment process such as preparing your CV, interview practice and mock assessment centres, as well as putting on employer events, which should allow you to network with potential future employers offering graduate roles, internships and placements in the advertising and marketing sectors².