Finance

with a Foundation Year

How do businesses function effectively in a global context? How do they understand their markets and consumers while managing and leading responsibly?

You’ll address these questions by exploring the importance of globalisation to business and finance. You’ll learn about the dynamic nature of marketing through concepts such as the marketing mix and in the process develop a holistic understanding of what is happening in the rapidly-changing global marketplace.

By taking a case-study based approach, you’ll gain essential insights into the contemporary business world and develop critical skills and confidence to prepare you for the rest of your degree.

Unlock your potential and gain the essential skills for academic success at university. You’ll develop effective study habits, learn to manage your time, and gain strategies for independent learning. You’ll conduct academic research, by learning to find, evaluate, and use academic sources, while avoiding plagiarism. Your writing skills will be developed through extended writing activities, referencing, proofreading, and editing. You’ll also improve your communication skills by learning how to structure a presentation and use visual aids. You’ll develop your critical thinking through analysis, evaluation, and argumentation. By the end of this module, you’ll be building towards working at Level 4. 

How do businesses operate today? What are their key functions and how are they organised? Most importantly, what do managers need to know in order to make sound decisions?

You’ll develop a broad understanding of essential business management and accounting models, exploring theories that are integral to how businesses work. By looking at fundamental business strategies and different tools of analysis – like break-even calculations, ratio analysis, capital appraisal models, and decision trees – you’ll develop your understanding of the basics of business and start building up your skills in Excel.

Throughout the course, students actively engage in discussions and practical applications, preparing them to confront complex global economic challenges armed with a data-driven approach. By the end of the course, students emerge equipped with the necessary skills to analyse economic data effectively and contribute meaningfully to informed decision-making in the global economic landscape.

Dive into a project that sparks your curiosity and hones your academic skills, as you choose a topic you’re passionate about and transform your research into a compelling essay. This module allows you to develop and apply the learning from your Autumn term module ‘Academic Skills Development’.  You will improve your research and writing skills further and refine your use of sources. While you conduct your reading and research, you’ll engage in reflective practices improving your ability to assess and evaluate your learning using various reflective models.  Independence and time management are key skills you’ll develop as you navigate this module.  To maximise your experience, you are expected to prepare and actively participate in our regular tutorials.  These are designed to provide invaluable opportunities to seek guidance and develop your project. 

One of the elements of decision making involves performing and interpreting statistical analysis. This module dives into the world of descriptive and inferential statistics, probability distributions, and hypothesis testing, all through the lens of financial applications.

Explore the dynamic realm of basic time-series analysis and risk assessment techniques that will become the bedrock of your financial skills. You'll learn to not just to interpret data but to make it tell the story of how market participants are behaving.

Economics are a crucial tool for business to utilise to help make informed decision that support success and drive growth. Devloping a knowledge of microeconomics will help you understand how millions of consumers and producers make decisions, how they interact and use scarce resources.

You will learn how to apply microeconomic theories and tools to understand consumer and producer behaviour, resource allocation, and pricing policy, including cost and benefit analysis. The application of microeconomic theory to real-world situations will help you make efficient decisions as a manager and as an entrepreneur.

You ability to both understand and apply microeconomics theories to real business situations is vital to not only launching your career, but making rapid progress and delivering results on a managerial or executive level through informed decision making.

Finance is at the centre of everyone's decisions. In a world of tricky economic conditions and volatile financial markets, how can companies and investors apply the main principles of finance when undertaking investment and funding decisions?

You'll gain the knowledge and skills needed to evaluate various financial decisions, such as raising capital in financial markets or from financial institutions, investing in real assets or financial assets, and selling and trading securities.

You'll become proficient in using the Bloomberg terminal to gain a better understanding of financial market operations and you'll learn how companies and investors use this information and the main principles of finance to take funding and investment decisions to deliver profits and sustainable growth.

Develop the communication, analytical and problem-solving skills needed for a career in finance. Build your confidence in presenting financial information, working with others and making informed, ethical decisions in professional settings.

Explore how financial institutions and markets are regulated to promote accountability, transparency and trust. Examine corporate governance, ethical challenges and regulatory frameworks to understand how responsible financial decisions are made.

Develop the mathematical and statistical skills needed to analyse financial information and solve problems. Learn to apply quantitative techniques to evaluate financial data, assess risk and support informed investment and business decisions.

Almost all listed companies in the European Union and the United Kingdom have to prepare financial statements that comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). With a thorough understanding of how financial statements are prepared under IFRSs, managers of mid-sized companies will have the skills needed to identify trends and potential threats, and actively track their financial performance in real-time.

In this module you’ll develop the knowledge and skills to understand and apply IFRSs. You’ll also learn the theoretical framework for preparing and analysing financial statements. Learning how to apply IFRSs will give you the necessary skills to become a successful accounting and finance professional.

How do financial markets work? Who are the major players? How do central banks’ monetary policies affect financial markets?

You’ll develop a broad understanding of the financial system and how the market works within it. You’ll also examine the roles of financial intermediaries and various financial instruments, and explore how these are connected with the wider economy.

By the end of this module, you’ll have the knowledge and skills to be able to analyse current developments in financial markets and the wider economy, a crucial skill for a successful career in finance.

Corporate finance is concerned with the way companies can efficiently manage financial resources. Managers are concerned about provision of resources (capital funding decisions) and allocation of scarce resources (investment decisions). What factors do they consider when deciding how to fund their operations and where to invest?

In this module, you’ll examine the underlying financial economic theories and concepts that help managers to run sustainable businesses. You’ll develop analytical and problem-solving skills to advise managers on investment opportunities, capital structure decisions, dividend policies, and merger and acquisitions activities.

The world of fixed-income markets is becoming increasingly complex. Debt instruments have various payoff structures and fixed-income derivatives products are becoming extremely important in managing multiple financial risks. We'll explore a range of fixed-income securities, and explore in great detail their characteristics, as well as the main players and their roles in the debt markets.

You'll learn various analytical techniques to price these instruments, to construct a range of important yield curves used in the valuation of financial assets. You’ll sharpen your quantitative skills, which will considerably increase your employability within various financial sectors. These include investment banks, pension funds and any other financial institution that deals with the pricing of old and new financial instruments.

Data-driven analysis is at the heart of the financial industry. In this financial econometrics module, you’ll develop a robust grasp of the fundamental econometric tools commonly used in empirical finance. You’ll explore these tools for modelling, analysing, and forecasting financial data and examine the practical applications of industry-standard software such as E-views.

You’ll also develop the critical ability to evaluate the application of econometrics within the empirical finance literature. By the time you complete the module, you’ll be empowered to contribute meaningfully to data-driven decision-making in the financial sector- which is a vital first step towards an exciting and successful career.

Effectively assessing and managing risk is essential for corporate survival and growth. The risk management module provides a comprehensive overview of effective oversight and value generation principles, focusing on financial risk dynamics.

You’ll rigorously examine advancements in risk governance, regulatory frameworks, and industry risk management practices, focusing on in-depth evaluations of financial risk. You’ll gain a detailed understanding of financial risk types through real-world examples and emerge with specialised insights into managing these financial risks in a professional context.

The module empowers you to explain complex risk management concepts, think critically in uncertain situations, and systematically approach risk-related problems.

In an ever-changing financial world offering a wide variety of investment opportunities, investors and portfolio managers face the challenging task of identifying securities and allocating assets optimally to earn risk-adjusted returns. This module addresses these issues by covering various contemporary asset pricing and security valuation models, as well as modern portfolio construction techniques.

You’ll build on your knowledge of market and industry analysis and use real-world securities market data to construct optimal portfolios. You’ll also use a range of methods to evaluate their performance.

This module will present you with the opportunity to explore current issues in financial markets including responsible, ethical, and sustainable investing. It will prepare you for a variety of roles in the investment industry such as financial analysis, investment advice, and portfolio management.

More businesses are incorporating sustainability as a core corporate strategy. Sustainability issues are becoming increasingly important to customers and investors. Navigate through ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) regulation and industry initiatives which are designed to improve transparency and accountability, encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices and protect investors from greenwashing. You will gain analytical skills that will help you integrate sustainability into financial decisions taken by both corporate managers and professional investors.

Banks are both the backbone of a healthy economy and a potential source of instability. We'll explore the essential role banks play in the global financial system, understand the diverse risks that banks encounter, analyse methods for measuring bank performance and explore bank regulation in an international context. By studying recent financial crises, students will also be able to assess the link between the banking sector and the real economy. We'll also look at to how contemporary banking trends, such as sustainability initiatives and new financial technologies, shape the banking sector's future, equipping you with the essential theoretical and practical knowledge to engage professionally with the banking sector.

What are derivatives markets and how do they work? We will delve into the intricacies of these fascinating securities and markets, equipping you with the knowledge and skills required to make sound financial decisions.

You will learn about primary derivative securities and how they are used for hedging, arbitrage, and investment purposes. You’ll use market data from diverse underlying financial and physical assets such as stocks, currencies, bonds, and commodities in pricing, trading, and valuing derivatives. By the time you complete this module, you’ll be equipped with the skills, knowledge and confidence you need to launch careers in investment, treasuries, and risk management.

Explore the emerging trends and challenges reshaping finance, from AI and financial technology to sustainability and changing global markets. Examine how financial institutions and professionals respond to uncertainty, innovation and evolving regulations.

Apply your learning, experience, skills and curiosity to varied contemporary accounting and finance issues. Under the guidance of academics, alumni and businesses, you'll be given the autonomy to select, investigate, report on and defend a contemporary accounting and finance problem or topic leading to the development of a business case or dissertation.

Do you have what it takes to be a management consultant? Do you have the skills to be able to respond to the real-world problems that businesses are facing today? On this module, we'll work with real businesses who want the help of groups of KBS students to solve the challenges that they currently face.  Through a series of workshops you'll come to understand the consultancy process and develop key consultancy skills as you master the art of responding effectively to a brief from a business. Working in a group of your peers, you'll bring different skillsets from your studies to bear on solving business problems like designing a marketing strategy, advising on recruitment processes, or support meaningful performance management and financial evaluation etc. Put a capstone on your studies with a project that has real world impact.