Economics, Finance and Banking BSc (Econ) (Hons)

Topics covered include an overview of accounting and financial reporting, basic numerical techniques for accounting, introduction to trading accounts and profit and loss accounts (income statements), understanding the cost of sales, balance sheets, and current assets and liabilities.

You'll recognise the legal aspects and requirements of companies, recall and define the basic principles of contract formation, and become familiar with the content of commercial and consumer contracts, including the use of exclusion clauses. The module will also enable you to define the law regarding the rights of individual employees.

You'll get the foundational knowledge and skills to get your ready to advance onto the first year of a degree at the University of Portsmouth. You'll gain an appreciation for the knowledge and skills required to effectively manage and operate a business.

You'll gain an appreciation for the knowledge and skills required to effectively manage and operate a business. Topics covered include core concepts in business studies, understanding the business environment, different forms of business structures, business strategy and planning, enterprise, innovation, and entrepreneurship. You'll also delve into basic financial statements, key financial ratios, costs, budgeting, an introduction to marketing concepts, and creating marketing plans.

Topics covered include the history and fundamental importance of economics, the demand and supply model, elasticity and its applications, different market structures such as perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. Additionally, you'll explore the circular flow model involving households, firms, the financial sector, governments, and the foreign sector. The module also covers concepts like the business cycle, unemployment, economic growth, inflation, and international trade.

The module introduces candidates to the interesting challenges that ICT presents today and covers many anchor points that may serve as a bridge to their interests and lifestyles.

It also means you understand the value of scholarships, allowing you to move on to postgraduate programs at the University of Portsmouth.

These include approximation and substitution, estimation and percentages, applications of percentages in financial contexts, ratio and proportion, rules of indices, basic algebra, graphs, and quadratic equations.

You'll build practical skills in analysing bonds, exchange rates, and financial data used by professionals 

Explore cutting-edge themes such as financial regulation, stability, green finance, and environmental, social, and governance (esg) investing to prepare yourself for a career in modern finance and economics.

The module will give you the opportunity to analyse real-world economic issues empirically, evaluate market outcomes and assess the limits of classical economic models.

Through critical and ethical analysis, you'll develop evidence-based policy recommendations and enhance your ability to communicate findings clearly and concisely.

Throughout the module, you'll examine bond and stock valuation, with an introduction to the capital asset pricing model (capm), as well as corporate capital structure and the calculation of a firm's weighted average cost of capital (wacc).

These foundations will support you in later modules, your professional development, and informed financial decision-making in both organisational and personal contexts.

You'll develop strong analytical skills by evaluating evidence, comparing economic approaches, and applying economic reasoning to questions of social choice, welfare, and the allocation of scarce resources.

Using research-led examples and structured discussion, you'll build confidence in thinking critically, communicating clearly, and applying economics to complex societal decisions.

On this module you'll explore how businesses use data to understand performance and make better decisions, building confidence in analytics and business intelligence through practical, applied learning.

You'll analyse trends, uncover patterns and generate insight using descriptive and diagnostic techniques that support informed business decision-making.

By engaging in hands-on workshops, you'll build practical digital skills and work towards an industry-recognised microsoft office specialist certificate in excel at expert level, helping you stand out in the graduate job market.

You'll engage with core behavioural concepts and evidence, developing an understanding of how economists use experiments to identify and explain systematic patterns in behaviour.

Through clear lectures and interactive seminars featuring live experimental demonstrations, you'll build confidence in behavioural reasoning and experimental approaches, enabling you to critically assess evidence and understand how behavioural economics informs economic analysis.

You'll gain practical insights to design solutions that create meaningful global impact.

Discover another culture as you grow your subject knowledge or refine your foreign language skills at one of our partner universities. You'll enhance your worldliness, self-awareness and cross-cultural communication abilities as you build your international network and meet people from across the world. At the end of the module you’ll evaluate your development and return to Portsmouth prepared to use your new cultural awareness and maturity to thrive in globalised workplaces.

Combining theory with policy analysis, you'll develop critical thinking and analytical skills needed to understand global complexity. the module also equips you to evaluate competing perspectives, assess global responses and engage thoughtfully with challenges facing governments, institutions, and societies in an increasingly interconnected world.

The topics covered in this module include core theoretical expositions of valuation principles with professional business valuation techniques to provide students with a specialist knowledge and understanding of business valuation, which is widely employed, for instance, during mergers and acquisitions or during an initial public offering (ipo).

The module also develops a critical understanding of advanced theoretical models and methods involved in financial decision-making process and explores empirical research and case study evidence to illustrate theory in practice.

Lectures provide students with key concepts and essential information to support independent learning. seminars incorporate formative training exercises, discussions, and analyses.

You'll design and carry out an applied economics project, using analytical techniques commonly used by professional economists to investigate policy and investment issues.

Through working with data, you'll define clear economic problems, compare policy options, and evaluate evidence to support informed decision-making.

You'll produce a professional-style report that presents analysis clearly and justifies recommendations, developing research, critical analysis, and communication skills valued by employers and public sector organisations.

You'll work closely with a specialist supervisor who serves as your personal tutor, guiding you through the process of investigating complex systems and deploying advanced analytical techniques 

This module is your chance to master the art of professional communication and scientific reporting, culminating in a showcase of your independent discovery and academic achievement.

On this module you'll develop your understanding of finance and investment by analysing individual companies and making independent share-trading decisions within a supported, workshop-based environment.

You'll apply investment concepts, financial analysis techniques and a range of strategies to evaluate company performance and financial position using real market data.

Using professional financial databases and analytical tools, you'll research, value and assess investments, building confidence in practical, real-world investment decision-making.

In this module, you'll design and manage your own independent research project in economics.

With the support of an experienced tutor, you'll take charge of identifying a compelling research question, critically evaluating relevant literature and drawing meaningful conclusions based on your research.

Along the way, you'll develop advanced skills in analysis, planning, and communicating complex ideas in a professional manner.

On this module you'll use advanced analytics and decision intelligence to tackle complex business problems, evaluating how data-driven insight supports confident, high-level decision-making.

You'll apply descriptive, diagnostic and predictive analytical techniques to interpret organisational performance, assess alternative scenarios and inform strategic choices.

By working with business intelligence tools and analytical models, you'll develop the professional judgement to design, evaluate and clearly communicate evidence-based insights that shape strategy in real-world business contexts.

You'll explore crime as a social issue and examine how economic ideas and methods are used to understand criminal behaviour and its impacts.

You'll also study security from an international perspective, analysing issues such as conflict, terrorism, geopolitics, and defence spending using economic theory.

This module will develop your ability to apply economic approaches to complex social and global challenges, strengthening your analytical skills and understanding of policy-related debates.

You'll examine the psychology behind financial choices, focusing on how behavioural factors influence trading strategies and market trends.

This module develops your ability to analyse real-world examples and communicate behavioural concepts through critical analysis, providing a practical link between financial principles and the reality of modern decision-making.

The module introduces key economic concepts used to analyse energy-environment interactions and analyses policy challenges while familiarising students with theories in the energy and environmental economics literature, supplemented with applications in current empirical studies.

You'll spend your working industry, with support from our Placement Office.

You'll complete a placement portfolio for the duration of the placement, which will outline your key learning activities, and attend a Placement Student Day at the University to discuss your placement experience with the Placement Officer or your course leader.

When you successfully complete your placement it will be recognised in your degree transcript of achievement, and your degree certificate will state `in the sandwich mode'.

You may also choose to receive a Certificate of Professional Practice from the Faculty of Business and Law.