Course details

Summary

The Postgraduate Diploma in Commerce (PGDipCom) is a two-semester paper-based programme designed for graduates seeking to build on their undergraduate degree and enhance their career prospects. Unlike the Bachelor of Commerce with Honours (BCom(Hons)) degree, it does not require students to write a dissertation. The PGDipCom may be awarded with distinction or credit.

Applicants must hold a Bachelor's degree appropriate for the subject of study proposed, and have achieved appropriate grades.

Finance is a modern and fascinating discipline dealing with money, markets and valuation, that is relevant to all aspects of business and personal and professional planning. Professionals in finance are involved with a myriad of issues in investments, planning and risk. The subject is often confused with accounting. However, while both deal with money and value, accounting is concerned with systems of control, and recording and reporting the results of historical transactions. By contrast finance is concerned with the relationship between investor expectations about the future and current market values. By focusing on markets the subject can also be confused with economics. However economics deals with broad issues of resource allocation, whereas finance focuses more narrowly on how markets value risk and the implications for investment, financial planning, shareholder wealth and corporate governance.

Two recent trends have fuelled the value of finance as a mature, globally recognised profession and underpin its relevance for the 21st century. The first is the world-wide move to deregulation and the opening of markets which has coincided with an almost universal appreciation of the importance of capital and investment for growth and prosperity. The second is the rush of theoretical developments in the discipline which has provided the tools to manage risk and return. The impact has been extreme. There are few businesses today that are not acutely aware of the significance of markets and financial planning for their viability.

Papers

120 points from 400-level FINC or ACFI papers. Other papers may be substituted subject to approval, up to a maximum of 40 points.

Entry criteria

Applicants shall either have been admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Commerce majoring in the subject or subjects of study proposed; or have been admitted with the status of one who is entitled to proceed to the diploma.

English Language Requirements: IELTS - Score of 6.5 in the academic module (with no individual band below 6.0); Internet-based TOEFL Score of 95 with a minimum writing score of 22.; Paper-based TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) score of 587 (TWE 4.5); Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) – Overall score of 176 (with no individual band below 169); Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) – Overall score of 176 (with no individual band below 169); APIEL Advanced Placement International English Language Examination - Grade 4 or higher; Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic - Overall score of 64 with no communicative skills score below 57; University of Otago Foundation Studies Ltd: Completion of 'English for Postgraduate Academic Purposes' with a grade of C or higher.