BSc (Hons) Finance with Foundation Bachelor's degree at the University of Reading

Engage with global challenges through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on insights from business, law, social sciences and the humanities, you'll explore complex societal issues and learn how academic knowledge connects with real world problems. This module also supports the development of academic resilience, critical thinking, and the graduate attributes that will empower your future studies.

Discover what shapes successful organisations. This module helps you develop awareness of workplace behaviours, team dynamics, and professional skills. You'll apply principles of project management and examine the organisational structures and human factors that drive effective performance.

Explore how organisations operate and how decisions are made in real business environments. Working through an applied, interactive scenario, you'll develop core knowledge of mathematical, statistical, and business concepts. By the end of the module, you'll have a strong foundation to help you succeed throughout your academic and professional journey.

This module deepens your understanding of data analysis within financial contexts. You will learn mathematical and statistical methods used across the business world, alongside techniques for assessing data reliability. By developing strong analytical skills, you'll be well prepared for the demands of your undergraduate finance studies. This module offers extended contact hours to develop your confidence with data literacy.

Explore financial institutions, credit risk, maturity transformation and liquidity, plus the economics of banking and types of money including cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies. Focus on sustainable finance and its important contribution to achieving Net Zero by 2050.

Get an overview of the role the financial system plays in the economy. Discuss the main players in the system, the instruments they trade, and the trading prices. Focus on capital markets and the private and public financial institutions participating in these markets

Develop an understanding of micro- and macroeconomics, enabling you to see how businesses are affected by developments in specific markets as well as by changes at the level of the entire economy.

Discover a range of quantitative techniques that are commonly applied in business, finance and management. You'll learn about introductory statistics and mathematical techniques that are necessary for a good understanding of financial theories and which are vital to develop and understand the models used in business and finance.

Explore the ethical conflicts encountered by the investment management and finance professionals and firms. You'll be encouraged to reflect on financialisation and the impact of unethical behaviour on trading partners, customers, financial markets and wider stakeholders.

Develop a foundation in how businesses use accounting information. Learn about management accounting and financial accounting, which will provide the necessary foundation to allow you to specialise in your later studies.

Focus on corporate value: its measurement, and its maximisation through corporate financial decisions, growth strategies, and governance practices. Get a good grounding in corporate finance theory and an appreciation of the related empirical evidence.

Examine the issues involved in understanding the investment market, constructing an optimal investment portfolio, evaluating the performance of that portfolio, and adjusting its composition through time. Develop a detailed knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings and the practical techniques required to form and manage portfolios of assets.

Put finance theories, that you studied during Part 1 Introductory Finance, into practice with the use of Microsoft Excel functions, giving you the opportunity to apply your theoretical knowledge to solve some real-life financial problems.

Gain an overview of the scientific consensus on climate change and its projected social and economic consequences, in order to understand how the financial sector can help to mitigate and manage these impacts.

Contextualise current issues and debates in finance by placing them in the historical evolution of finance. Understand how finance has evolved over time and where it may develop in the future.

Learn about Object Oriented Programming using Python as the main programming language, and use the learning outcomes for data processing and applications in Finance. Discover the basics of programming, including class, objects, datatypes, conditional statements and loops, processing data from files, receiving inputs and displaying relevant outputs.

Learn about the basics of Sustainable Finance, covering applications in financing and investment activities. You'll explore the Environmental, Social and Governance factors, and will discuss the relevant policies and international regulations.

Study the international debt markets, equip yourself with the tools to analyse and compare products, and determine trading and hedging strategies. Develop an understanding of the products and practices of international money and bond market cash instruments and bond futures.

Gain a solid understanding of the econometric approaches that are commonly employed to test financial theories. You'll learn the econometric techniques that are used in empirical finance literature, apply these techniques using an econometric software package and analyse real-world data to answer questions in finance.

Develop techniques to measure and manage market and credit risks in banks. Explore recent developments in bank regulation. Develop critical risk management skills that are indispensable for anyone willing to undertake a career in the financial sector.

Explore derivatives markets and their products through theories and practical trading strategies. Become equipped with the essential knowledge to continue studying the advanced derivatives pricing model and practising trading with derivatives.

Apply engineering methods to finance for the design, analysis, and construction of financial contracts that meet the needs of investors and companies. Gain an overview of the theory and practice of Financial Engineering, with emphasis on contract design, payoffs replication and application of simple derivatives pricing and hedging methodology to complex derivatives and structured products.

Choose a finance question that is of interest to you, and produce a Research Project that addresses your question.

Develop your appreciation of the practical aspects of investing by private equity and venture capital firms, understand the dynamics between the venture capital investor and the entrepreneur, and the practicalities of raising private equity and venture capital funds from institutional investors.

Explore the economic drivers and relationships between bond, money markets and central bank monetary policies, and the impact of key economic drivers on the pricing, trading strategies and portfolio management for bonds and money market instruments.

Learn about fintech, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain. Gain an understanding of how and why firms are implementing blockchain technology in their day-to-day business as well as the challenges they face.

Focus on option/volatility trading and risk management. Seminars take place in the dealing room, and you will manage the risk, as market makers, of equity options portfolios on ICTrader. Gain a basic practical working knowledge of the hedging and trading of derivative securities, and in particular options.

Explore the fundamentals of machine learning (ML), and its application in business and finance. You'll discover how ML algorithms are used to extract intelligence from datasets. You'll also gain hands-on experience with Python as a programming language and Structured Query Language (SQL) for managing large datasets.

Explore key concepts, theories, techniques, and issues in developing information systems solutions for digital business. Understand the importance of aligning business and IT strategies through an understanding of the structure and function of information processed by IT systems from both business and technical perspectives.