Financial Sector Management (Postgraduate Diploma)

Overview
Structure
Study materials
Fees
Assessment
Requirements
Leaders

Is this programme for me?

The Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Sector Management is designed to give a strong foundation for a career in banks or other financial institutions. The programme can also provide a suitable route towards entering the MSc Finance (major: Financial Sector Management).

Programme aims

The programme will enable you to deepen your understanding of the principles, applications, and context underlying decision making in financial sector management.

Programme details

	You study	Study period	Cost (2013)
PG Dip	4 courses	1-5 years	£4,920
Individual Professional Courses	You can take up to three individual courses from this distance learning programme. Each course lasts eight weeks and you are registered for two years. The fee per course is £1,230.

Prestige

The programme has been developed by academics at the Centre for Financial and Management Studies (CeFiMS), a postgraduate research and teaching department within SOAS, University of London. Staff at CeFiMS have international reputations and are involved in researching their subjects at the very limits of current knowledge.

Career progression

As a graduate of this programme you will be prepared for a management career in deposit banks, investment banks, fund management, consultancy, central banks and international bodies.

Comprehensive study materials and support

You will be given all of the learning materials that you need to complete each course. These will typically include:

The Study Guide, a core text specially written for the course. This takes the form of a looseleaf binder containing eight ‘course units’. The units are carefully structured to provide the main teaching of the course, defining and exploring the main concepts and issues, locating these within current debate and introducing and linking the further assigned readings.
Textbooks and collections of key journal articles and book extracts.
Online and multimedia tools. You will have access to the Online Study Centre (OSC), which is a web-accessed learning environment. Via the OSC, you can communicate with your assigned academic tutor, administrators and other students on the course using discussion forums. The OSC also provides access to the course Study Guide and assignments, as well as a selection of electronic journals available on the University of London Online Library. In addition, some courses materials will also include video lectures on DVD, CDs of case studies, and econometric software.
A Welcome Pack is available online, which provides you with resources and tips on effective distance learning. We will also send you a Study Skills textbook to help you manage your studies.

Your time commitment

This will depend partly on choices you make, but most students take two years to complete Postgraduate Diploma. The study calendar consists of five sessions per year. Each session is devoted to a specific course and lasts eight weeks (with the exception of the first session which runs for 10 weeks). During each session you will need to allocate between 15-20 hours per week to complete the programme.

Summary of key dates

Application deadline	3 September 2012	19 November 2012	8 April 2013
Programme starts	November 2012	January 2013	June 2013
Examinations	October

Four courses from the following

Quantitative methods for financial management

This course introduces some of the quantitative methods of financial management which are commonly used by financial analysts, firms’ managers and individual investors. It examines techniques for the valuation of different classes of securities, analyses criteria for guiding investment decisions, considers the measurement of asset risk and return and discusses statistical techniques of forecasting. Eviews software is provided for regression analysis and diagnostic procedures.

Unit 1: Financial Arithmetic and Valuation of Bonds and Stocks
Unit 2: Statistical Concepts and Probability Theory
Unit 3: Statistical Inference
Unit 4: The Classical Linear Regression Model
Unit 5: Statistical Inference in the Classical Linear Regression Model
Unit 6: The Multiple Linear Regression Model
Unit 7: Topics in the Multiple Linear Regression Model
Unit 8: Risk Measurement and Investment Decisions

Corporate finance C321

This course enables you to relate principles and practice to the financing decisions of enterprises in modern economies. The course analyses the decisions firms make about financing their investments in productive capital.

Unit 1: Perspectives on Corporate Finance
Unit 2: Net Present Value and Capital Budgeting Decisions
Unit 3: Risk, Capital Market Equilibrium and Capital Budgeting Decisions
Unit 4: Efficiency of Capital Markets and Implications for Corporate Financing Decisions
Unit 5: Dividend Policy
Unit 6: Capital Structure I
Unit 7: Capital Structure II: Information Asymmetries and Agency Costs
Unit 8: Mergers

Corporate governance

This course is specially designed for the postgraduate study of such areas as management, finance, financial law, corporate law, economics and related subjects, and has been designed to increase the depth of your understanding of corporate government issues. The course places a strong emphasis on the relationship between theoretical concepts and real world issues, making a real contribution to your in-depth understanding of the relevant corporate governance issues and future career development.

Unit 1: Introduction to Corporate Governance
Unit 2: Theory of the Firm
Unit 3: Corporate Governance and the Role of Law
Unit 4: Corporate Governance around the World
Unit 5: Board Composition and Control
Unit 6: CEO Compensation
Unit 7: International Governance
Unit 8: Overview of Corporate Governance Codes

Banking and capital markets

This course examines the underlying principles and characteristics of banking and financial markets that are the foundation for understanding both their normal role in economies and the headline events. It concentrates on the theoretical and empirical scientific knowledge produced by modern research on banking. Since such knowledge is never fully established or ‘proven’, it enables the student to examine opposing points of view and to discuss the published studies.

Unit 1: Bank-Based vs Market-Based Financial Systems
Unit 2: Why do Banks Exist?
Unit 3: Why Banks Exist: Explanations Based on their Lending
Unit 4: Banks vs Capital Markets
Unit 5: Credit Rationing and Overlending
Unit 6: Bank Runs and Regulatory Responses
Unit 7: Financial Crisis
Unit 8: Portfolio Analysis

Finance in the global market

The main objective of the course is to enable you to understand some of the main characteristics of that globalised financial world. Because of the centrality of foreign exchange markets to international finance, we regard understanding foreign exchange markets as the core of that objective.

Unit 1: The International context of finance
Unit 2: The markets for foreign exchange
Unit 3: Exchange rates and prices
Unit 4: Exchange rates and interest rates
Unit 5: Managing foreign exchange exposure
Unit 6: International corporate financing and project finance
Unit 7: Capital structure and cost of capital in international financing
Unit 8: Corporate finance and currency crises

Banking regulation and resolution of banking crises

The recent banking crisis has motivated heightened discussion of the merits of bank regulations used to minimise the risk of bank distress and intervention tools to mitigate its effects. In this course you will study technical aspects of bank regulation, supervision and intervention to resolve crises.

Unit 1: Principles of Bank Regulation
Unit 2: Banking Supervision & Regulation
Unit 3: The Prudential Supervision of Banks
Unit 4: Banking Crises: Weak Banks and Lender of Last Resort Support
Unit 5: Restructuring Failed Banks and Protecting Depositors
Unit 6: The Institutional Structure of Financial Regulation
Unit 7: Regulation, Supervision and Financial Stability
Unit 8: Issues in International Supervision and Regulation

Bank financial management

This course concentrates on the principles of bank management of assets and liabilities. You will learn about the principles of bank balance sheet management and money market operations as well as liquidity ratios and capital adequacy ratios. You will also study issues of bank supervision and regulation.

Unit 1: Banking Innovations and Risk
Unit 2: Bank Accounts: A Useful Tool if Handled with Care
Unit 3: Bank Valuation
Unit 4: Bank Risk Management - Liquidity Management
Unit 5: Bank Risk Management - Interest Rate Risk Management
Unit 6: Cost of Funds and the Funding of Operations
Unit 7: Bank Risk Management - Credit Risk
Unit 8: Capital Management

How you study

Without leaving your job or home you can study, write and submit assignments, receive expert guidance from your CeFiMS tutor and advice from the student support team. In addition to printed study materials, the Online Study Centre allows students to work with course materials, send queries to tutors and submit assignments via the Internet.

When you take a CeFiMS distance learning course you will be sent everything you need to complete your studies. A typical set of course learning materials would include:

The Study Guide, a core text specially written for the course. This takes the form of a looseleaf binder containing eight ‘course units’. The units are carefully structured to provide the main teaching of the course, defining and exploring the main concepts and issues, locating these within current debate and introducing and linking the further assigned readings.
Textbooks and collections of key journal articles and book extracts.
Online and multimedia tools. You will have access to the OSC, which is a web-accessed learning environment. Via the OSC, you can communicate with your assigned academic tutor, administrators and other students on the course using discussion forums. The OSC also provides access to the course Study Guide and assignments, as well as a selection of electronic journals available on the University of London Online Library. In addition, some courses materials will also include video lectures on DVD, CDs of case studies, and econometric software.
A Welcome Pack is available online, which provides you with resources and tips on effective distance learning. We will also send you a Study Skills textbook to help you manage your studies.

Online Study Centre
Created by CefiMS to provide additional resources and support, the Online Study Centre allows students to:

access study materials that complement printed texts
submit assignments
communicate with tutors
contact support staff regarding administrative queries
access online resources provided by the Univeristy of London Library including full-text journal databases of JSTOR and EBSCO.

Note: Students who are eligible to use the OSC are automatically contacted by CeFiMS staff and given information about how to access the system for their course.

Fees

You have the option to pay for some or all of your course fees at the outset (thus avoiding any subsequent rise in fees) or you can pay for one course each time you enrol in a study session.

	2013
Fee per module	£ 1,230
Total Postgraduate Diploma	£ 4,920
ConvertGBP x 1

Note

The University reserves the right to amend previously announced fees, if necessary.

All fees must be paid in pounds sterling, which may be paid either by a credit card recognised by MasterCard International or by the Visa group OR by banker's draft, cheque or UK postal order.

Other costs

Where students are following the programme under arrangement with a local institution offering tutorial facilities, there may be some variation in the fees quoted to cover local administration costs. Besides the fees payable to the University, you should also budget for the fee levied by your local examination centre to cover their costs (if you do not sit your exams in London).

Academic Requirements

In order to be considered for registration applicants must have:

EITHER
(a) a good degree in finance, economics, or other appropriate discipline, from a university or other institution acceptable to the University (qualifications in other subjects will be assessed on their merits)
OR
(b) previous education and experience without a First degree, which satisfies the University as a qualification on the same level as a First degree approved under (a) for this purpose, and which has included suitable preliminary training.

Please visit the EduGarage website [external link] to find out which browsers, plugins and operating systems best support Blackboard 8.0 for the Online Study Centre.

Language Requirements

For awards at FHEQ level 7, students must provide satisfactory evidence showing that they have passed within the previous three years a test of proficiency in English at the following minimum level:

IELTS with an overall grade of at least 6.5 with a minimum of 6 in each sub test; or
TOEFL with a score of 600 of 250 on the computerised test plus a Test of Written English (TWE of at least 4.5); or
a test of proficiency in English language from the prescribed list published by the University.

Where an applicant does not meet the prescribed English language proficiency requirements but believes that they can demonstrate the requisite proficiency for admission the University may, at its discretion, consider the application.

Note: Some programmes will require greater proficiency in English language; these requirements will be reflected in the relevant programme regulations.

Computer Requirements

Online access and general computer requirements
As one of our students you need to have regular access to a computer and the internet; this may be for accessing the Student Portal, downloading course materials from the Virtual Learning Environment, and accessing resources from the Online Library. You will also need to have access to appropriate software, for example, a PDF reader and suitable hardware capacity on your computer, e.g. for document storage. Additional requirements include that you have JavaScript and cookies enabled to access particular online systems, for example, the Student Portal.

Supported Browsers include:
Internet Explorer 7+
Firefox 5+
Chrome 13+

Screen resolution (recommended)
1024 x 768 or greater

Certain programmes may have their own specific requirements, please refer to the relevant Regulations.

Financial Sector Management (Postgraduate Diploma)