Course details

Summary

Finance is a relatively new and rapidly growing discipline that examines the acquisition and allocation of financial resources. Where financial accounting measures past performance, Finance as a discipline is forward-focused. It is largely about future planning for firms or investors.

Finance consists of three interrelated subject areas:

• corporate finance studies how firms raise and efficiently utilise funds obtained from lenders and shareholders
• financial markets and institutions explores how the financial system facilitates the transfer of funds from savers and lenders to borrowers
• investment analysis studies how investors choose securities and asset classes for their investment portfolios.
• All of these areas assess the trade-off between risk and reward and the valuation of both financial and capital assets.

Courses

100-level courses

Bachelor of Commerce

UC offers a major and a minor in Finance as part of the Bachelor of Commerce (BCom).

The first-year, 100-level courses required to be taken for a BCom majoring in Finance are:

ACCT102 Accounting and Financial Information

ECON104 Introduction to Microeconomics or ECON105 Introduction to Macroeconomics or ECON199 a STAR course for secondary school students

INFO123 Information Systems and Technology

MGMT100 Fundamentals of Management

STAT101 Statistics 1

MATH101 Methods of Mathematics or MATH102 Mathematics 1A

Plus 30 points from 100-level Commerce or any other UC courses.

Bachelor of Science

If you are completing a Bachelor of Science majoring in Finance you are required to take the following first-year courses:

STAT101 Statistics 1

MATH102 Mathematics 1A

ACCT102 Accounting and Financial Information

ECON104 Introduction to Microeconomics

200-level and beyond

Later courses provide a more detailed treatment of the topics introduced at 100-level.

Students majoring in Finance should also consider taking 200-level Economics courses in microeconomic theory and econometrics. Students majoring in Finance in the Bachelor of Science are required to take FINC331 Financial Economics.

Career opportunities

Today it would be rare for a person to rise to the position of chief financial officer (CFO) without a strong grounding in both Accounting and Finance. There are also many other career opportunities for Finance graduates, with typical jobs including: financial analyst, money market and foreign exchange dealer, loan analyst, equity analyst, risk analyst/manager, portfolio manager, financial planner, investment banker and small-business manager.

Further study

The Certificate in Science can be used as a stepping stone to a Bachelor of Science.

Entry criteria

Admission to UC with University Entrance, or equivalent, is required to enrol for a Certificate in Arts. Applicants must have completed New Zealand University Entrance through NCEA; or Cambridge International Examinations (CIE); or International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) or any other equivalent overseas qualification.

Other English language requirements: TOEFL PBT with a minimum score of 550 and TWE with a minimum score of 4.5; CCEL EAP Level 2 with a minimum C+ grade; CAE or CPE minimum score of 169 with at least 162 in reading, writing, listening and speaking; Pearson Test of English (Academic) - PTE with an overall score of 57 and no PTE communicative skills score below 50.