
Finance - MSc
Currently viewing course to start in 2023/24 Entry.
This course has recently been updated. Please download the course specification for the up to date information. With an array of contradictory information, the financial world and capital market specialists provide critical and innovative analysis of business and financial data to make short and long-term financial decisions....
- Level Postgraduate Taught
- Study mode Full Time
- Location City Centre
- Award MSc
- Start date September 2023
- Fees View course fees
- School Birmingham City Business School
- Faculty Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences
Overview
This course has recently been updated. Please download the course specification for the up to date information.
With an array of contradictory information, the financial world and capital market specialists provide critical and innovative analysis of business and financial data to make short and long-term financial decisions.
Thus at postgraduate level the study must be integrative, blending economic, mathematical and financial theory with analytical approaches to solve complex problems and implement solutions. Finance must also be treated as international in context to ensure its relevance in the global economy.
The MSc Finance degree at Birmingham City University represents an ideal choice if you wish to pursue a career in financial institutions, private equity or corporate financial management. The course is designed to ensure you gain a well-balanced understanding of modern financial theories, with opportunities to apply your knowledge to practical case studies throughout your learning journey.
You will gain a strong command of analytical techniques, computing and research methods for problem solving, and develop confidence in the use and presentation of finance arguments in your professional role. The course will give you the core knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to sift through diverse and often complex information, derived nationally and internationally, to make key decisions.
Professional Placement option
For our MSc Finance degree, you will have the opportunity to take the Professional Placement version of the course, which is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.
This will allow you to complete a credit bearing, 20 week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability and transferable skills. The placement experience will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.
You will be responsible for finding and securing your own placement. The University, however, will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study, with support from our Careers+ team as well as advice and guidance from your School.
Please note that placements will only be confirmed following a competitive, employer-led selection process, therefore the University will not be able to guarantee placements for students who have registered for the ‘with Professional Placement’ course.
For full details, please click here.
What's covered in this course?
In the first stage, you will focus on examining the role of risk management in investment decisions and the need for ethical and regulatory frameworks governing finance. You will also focus on developing a deeper and systematic understanding on how corporate and financial markets work around the world.
During the second stage, you will acquire the quantitative skills to analyse and interpret data. You will have a solid understanding on advanced financial strategy and the applications. The necessary analytical, quantitative, communication, and information technology skills will be developed in a process that is expected to enable you to apply those skills in real-life situations by modelling economic relations, and by interpreting finance theories, decisions and business behaviour.
The final core Research Skills and Dissertation module will strengthen your research skills and apply your developed analytical and numeracy skills, and contribute to providing efficient and effective solutions to business problems.
To help you develop the skills that leading employers ask for, and let you see how traders work, we can access Thomson Reuters Eikon in our iCITY Trading room. Moreover, the course also enables you to be confident in the application of industry-specific skills, for example, with the use of platforms such as DataStream with problem-solving approaches having been exposed to real-life scenarios through industry guest-speaker workshops. These skills enrich your experience and provide an added advantage in your endeavours to pursue their future professional careers in a highly competitive industry.
Based at the University’s new campus in the UK’s second city, you will live and study in a vibrant environment and engage with local, national and international businesses. You will be taught by highly-qualified, research-active academics with industrial and professional experience.
Why Choose Us?
- Our MSc finance suite will prepare you to deal with tomorrow's financial, banking and investment challenges and enable you to get cutting-edge knowledge of contemporary global finance
- You will gain contemporary knowledge regarding global financial issues, ethical and sustainable financing, and financial innovative products
- You will learn to design strategies to deal with the various financial risks faced by businesses, multinational companies or global investors
- You will get access to the same investment analysis software that traders, financial analysts and decision makers use in the investment industry in our University’s ‘CITY Trading Room’
- You can gain experience of working in the industry through our Professional Placement route
- We will equip you for a variety of career paths, including fund manager, financial analyst, investment banker or financial manager, treasurer, and retail banking
- Following graduation, you will have the opportunity to apply for STEAMhouse Business Incubator membership.
- We will prepare you for professional bodies' exams and certification for Eikon, Excel, and Python.
OPEN DAY
Join us for an on-campus Open Day where you'll be able to meet us in person. You'll get the chance to learn about courses in subject talks, chat to tutors and explore our campus. We'll post you a detailed event programme to help plan your day and find your way.
Next Event: Saturday 24 June
Entry Requirements
You are required to meet one of the following options:
Essential Requirements
Typical Offers (UK Students) | ||
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An honours degree from a UK University (minimum 2:2) in a Finance related discipline. |
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An equivalent graduate level qualification from an overseas university or equivalent institution (minimum 2:2) in a finance related discipline. |
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Successful passing a Pre-Master's course approved by Birmingham City University |
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Successful passing a Pre-Master's course at another UK university/institution with a minimum of 55 per cent average |
Other qualifications will be considered on a case by case basis.
Please note that even if your application fully meets the entry criteria, you may be required to further demonstrate your suitability via an interview or submission of a course proposal before being offered a place.
Interviews may be conducted in your country of residence, over the telephone or by Skype.
Additional information for EU/International students
Essential | ||
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Applications from international applicants with equivalent qualifications are welcome. Please see your country page for further details on the equivalent qualifications we accept. In additional to the academic entry requirements listed above, international and EU students will also require the qualifications detailed in this table. |
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English language requirements 2020/21 | ||
IELTS |
6.0 overall with 5.5 minimum in all bands If you do not meet the required IELTS score, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English courses. Please note that you must have a Secure English Language Test (SELT) to study on the pre-sessional English course. More information. |
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Other accepted qualifications | Visit our English language page |
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No English certificate is required for applicants from countries that appear on our English exemption list. Please contact the International Office for this list.
Fees & How to Apply
UK students
Annual and modular tuition fees shown are applicable to the first year of study. The University reserves the right to increase fees for subsequent years of study in line with increases in inflation (capped at 5%) or to reflect changes in Government funding policies or changes agreed by Parliament. View fees for continuing students.
Award: MSc
Starting: Sep 2023
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Full Time
- 1 Year
- £11,500 in 2023/24
- Full Time
- 18 Months (Professional Placement)
- £12,650 in 2023/24
International students
Annual and modular tuition fees shown are applicable to the first year of study. The University reserves the right to increase fees for subsequent years of study in line with increases in inflation (capped at 5%) or to reflect changes in Government funding policies or changes agreed by Parliament. View fees for continuing students.
Award: MSc
Starting: Sep 2023
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Full Time
- 1 Year
- £16,870 in 2023/24
- Full Time
- 18 Months (Professional Placement)
- £18,557 in 2023/24
Personal statement
You’ll need to submit a personal statement as part of your application for this course. This will need to highlight your passion for postgraduate study – and your chosen course – as well as your personal skills and experience, academic success, and any other factors that will support your application for further study.
Not sure what to include? We’re here to help – take a look at our top tips for writing personal statements and download our free postgraduate personal statement guide for further advice and examples from real students.
Course in Depth
Modules
In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete all the following core modules (totalling 160 credits):
This module is designed to help you to critically analyse the key theories, concepts and principles of corporate finance grounded in the academic literature and pertinent for the practitioner. In particular, this module provides a thorough treatment of the key aspects in the financial decision making process in a corporation, including project appraisal under uncertainty, cost of capital, source of finance, capital structure, dividend policy, corporate governance and working capital management.
The module assumes that students have the basic knowledge of risk management concepts. It is designed to review the risk management process and risk governance in organisations. It will provide the skills to identify and evaluate company’s or portfolio’s exposures to financial and non-financial risk factors in the business environment. It will also provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate a deep understanding and critical awareness of the risk factors around international business environment. Numerical skills in the calculation and evaluation of value-at-risk (VaR) and other credit risks of investment positions or financial derivatives such as forward contracts, swaps and options. The module will also provide the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills of risk budgeting, the use of risk-adjusted return on capital, the use of credit derivatives in managing credit risk, Sharpe ratio and other methods of managing market risk.
This module provides an overview of the nature and activities of the main groups of financial institutions within the UK. It aims to offer insight into bank regulation within which financial institutions operate, especially those emanating from financial crisis. This module focuses on students developing and having a good grasp of recent and ongoing events within financial institutions and its regulation, with the aim of appraising and developing potential changes in the landscape.
This module is highly technical and is best suited for students who have a good grounding in Finance at an undergraduate level. Its overall aim is to enhance your knowledge and understanding of various advanced theories in finance. This is an applied module which is designed to help students to develop problem solving as well as independent analytical skills. The module has high quantitative and mathematical content. However, the ability to read, interpret and critically analyse financial figures also forms an integral part of the module. To this end, you will be encouraged to use the finance theories to think creatively in coming up with finance related solutions
The module explores the attributes of financial econometric modelling and forecasting in the field of finance. You are expected to develop the skills to construct, apply and critically assess various econometric models for effective decision making. It will also empower you to carry out an independent data empirical analysis including critical thinking and analysis.
The purpose of the Research Project module is to provide a framework for you to undertake a substantial piece of disciplinary-relevant research. It is founded upon Birmingham City Business School’s teaching and learning philosophy which integrates theory and practice.
In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete at least 20 credits from the following indicative list of OPTIONAL modules:
This module is consistent with the programme philosophy. It covers important irrationalities on financial markets. Traditional theories in Finance assume that investors and managers are rational, making the best decisions in every situation. Nevertheless, research in psychology has shown that peoples’ actual behaviour exhibit systematic ‘errors’ that violate this assumption. Hence this module’s main aim is to provide you with a deeper and more realistic understanding of emotional and cognitive behavioural biases, how these biases may influence individuals’ perceptions, investment and financing decisions. It also provides insights into issues such as market anomalies. You will learn about mainstream models and techniques in behavioural finance.
This module allows you to apply the critical analysis and thinking skills that you acquired in the Analytical Skills module in a problem based learning approach to investigating a specific area of your finance studies and/or finance practice in which you have a particular interest. The critical analysis and critical thinking skills required in the module characterise a master’s level (level 7) piece of work. These are also highly relevant employability skills allowing you to demonstrate to potential employers that you are able to research a topic and then synthesise and analyse the results of that research in order to draw reasoned conclusions and make relevant recommendations. The ability to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical application is something that supports your development of professional and employability skills. The teaching, learning and assessment strategy to deliver this at Masters level develop an independent and self-directed learning culture and a challenging learning experience.
This module is designed to help you to critically analyse the key theories, concepts and principles of entrepreneurial finance grounded in the academic literature and pertinent for the practitioner. In particular, this module provides a thorough treatment of the key aspects in the financial decision making process in an entrepreneurial firms (small and medium sized) and venture firms. We first consider different sources of financing for entrepreneurial firms including bank loans, government funding, angels, venture capital, peer-to-peer financing, on-line banking and various types of private equity as well as the process of obtaining these sources. It will also include innovative ways of raising funds such as crowdfunding.
All core modules are guaranteed to run. Optional modules will vary from year to year and the published list is indicative only.
Professional Placement Year
In order to qualify for the award of MSc Finance with Professional Placement, a student must successfully complete 180 credits of the Level 7 modules listed above as well as the following Level 6 module:
This module is designed to provide you with the opportunity to undertake a credit bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.
Download course specification
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International
Welcome to the Birmingham City Business School, home to students from over 70 countries all around the world!
Birmingham City Business School is one of the UK’s largest, most established and most respected business schools. Our programmes are practice based and many have an international focus, which means your course will be entirely relevant to today’s business world. Almost all of our courses, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level, are open to international students.
We also have links with universities across the world, including Europe, the USA, China, India and Malaysia.
International ServicesOur international pages contain a wealth of information for international students who are considering applying to study here, including:
- Explore some of the good reasons why you should study here
- Find out how to improve your language skills before starting your studies
- Find all the information relevant to applicants from your country
- Learn where to find financial support for your studies
The University is conveniently placed, with Birmingham International Airport nearby and first-rate transport connections to London and the rest of the UK.
Facilities & Staff




Our Facilities
We are constantly investing in our estate and have spent £340 million on new learning facilities.
The Curzon Building
This course is based at our City Centre Campus – and specifically The Curzon Building, alongside other Social Sciences, Law and Business students.
The £63m building offers students a unique social learning space, including a dedicated student hub incorporating student support services, in the heart of Birmingham’s Eastside development.
The Business floors house an extensive number of IT facilities, breakout areas, and specialised rooms. The Marketing Link Agency is designed to replicate a modern marketing firm, allowing students to get real-life experience of working in the marketing sector. There is also the City Trading Room, which features state of the art stock market tracking equipment, keeping you up to date with all the financial comings and goings of the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street.
The Curzon building is also conveniently close to Birmingham’s business and financial centre, allowing for strong links between your studies and the real world.
The Curzon Building also features:
- An impressive library with access to over 65 million full text items and stunning views of Eastside City Park
- Your Students’ Union which is located in a beautifully restored 19th century pub, The Eagle and Ball
- A modern 300-seat food court with space to study and socialise
- Accessible IT facilities with full Office365 for all students for free
- Shared facilities with the wider campus including the Parkside Building and Millennium Point