Course Brief
The Purpose and Structure of the Financial Services Industry
On completion, the candidate should:
- know the function of the financial services industry in the economy
- transferring funds between individuals, businesses and government
- risk management
- know the role of the main institutions/organisations
- retail banks
- investment banks
- pension funds
- fund managers
- wealth managers
- custodians
- global custodians
- understand the roles of the following:
- wealth managers
- private banks
- platforms
Macroeconomic Theory
On completion, the candidate should:
- know how national income is determined, composed and measured in both an open and closed economy
- Gross Domestic Product
- Gross National Product
- know the stages of the economic cycle
- understand the composition of the balance of payments and the factors behind and benefits of international trade and capital flows
- Current account
- Imports
- Exports
- Effect of low opportunity cost producers
- know the nature, determination and measurement of the money supply and the factors that affect it
- reserve requirements
- discount rate
- Government bond issues
- understand the role of central banks and of the major G8 central banks
- understand the role, basis and framework within which monetary and fiscal policies operate;
- Government spending
- Government borrowing
- Private sector investment
- Private sector spending
- Taxation
- Interest rates
- Inflation
- Currency revaluation / exchange rates / purchasing power parity
- Quantitative easing
- know how inflation/deflation and unemployment are determined, measured and their inter-relationship
- know the concept of nominal and real returns
Microeconomic Theory
On completion, the candidate should:
- understand how price is determined and the interaction of supply and demand
- supply curve
- demand curve
- reasons for shifts in curves
- elasticity of demand
- change in price
- change in demand
- understand the theory of the firm:
- profit maximisation
- short and long run costs
- increasing and diminishing returns to factors
- economies and diseconomies of scale
- understand firm and industry behaviour under:
- perfect competition
- perfect free market
- monopoly
- oligopoly
Financial markets
On completion, the candidate should:
- know the main characteristics of order driven markets and quote driven markets and the differences between principal trading and agent trading and On Exchange and Over the Counter
- know the key steps in settling a trade
- know the basic structure of the foreign exchange market including:
- currency quotes
- settlement