Banking and Finance with a Professional Placement Year

From portfolio management to forecasting prices and assessing risk, lessons from economics permeate throughout the banking and financial services sectors. As student on BSc Banking and Finance, you will receive a rigorous training in economics, and will learn to apply its cutting-edge mathematical, statistical and computational tools to financial analyses. Simultaneously, you will develop a critical understanding of the legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks in which financial firms operate.

Formal analysis is, however, only one dimension of the skills you will develop on our programme. The world is a complicated place, and no analysis can hope to account for every eventuality. You will learn to make evidence-based decisions about how to simplify reality to make your analysis meaningful, and to defend your decisions convincingly. You will also learn how to communicate both the complexity and nuance of your analysis to a range of specialist and non-specialist audiences both verbally and in written form.

This programme incorporates a one-year professional placement. Supported by our Placements Team, you will gain real-world workplace experience, seeing first-hand how economics training provides unique, valuable insights to employers and how the skills you are developing equip you for life after university.

As a BSc Banking and Finance graduate, you will be highly sought after in many different occupations because of the uniquely diverse skillset you will develop. Not only do Cardiff graduates go on to have successful careers in leading firms in the financial sector, both in London and elsewhere, but also in a variety of roles across government, accountancy and consultancy. Many more continue their studies at postgraduate level.

Distinctive Features of the Programme

• Learn from the best: benefit from the expertise of a large, diverse faculty bringing unique insights from their own research into the classroom.

• State of the art facilities: you will be taught in our 65-terminal trading room throughout your degree, starting in first year.

• Tailor your studies: all final-year modules are optional so you can choose the ones that best fit your interests and aspirations.