Banking & Finance MBA 2015 is a course delivered for 24 months by Middlesex University and IFF Training.
Banking & Finance MBA 2015 covers topics such as:
- Executive leadership
- Evaluate the HR cycle and HR planning through recruitment and selection process and training and development
- Strategic HR management, analyse HR and organisational strategy; look into the changing role of HR; organisational and international industry context
- Leadership and change - Evaluate the change process, obstacles to change, politics and influence, leading change
- Analyse management and leadership through perspectives on management and leadership and the different styles of management/leadership
- Assess leadership development by looking at the `war for talent`, the learning process, emotional intelligence and reflection and the development process
- Business strategy
- Purposes and objectives of organisations
- The strategy process
- The internal environment focusing on resources and capabilities as well as linking this to knowledge management and organisational learning
- The external environment, including the competitive and structural dynamics of industries
- Competitive strategy and linking this to cost and differentiation advantage
- Innovation and the management of technology
- International strategy covering the drivers of internationalisation, competitive advantage in an international context, entry mode strategies, and the management of international operations
- Corporate strategy covering the scope and boundaries of the firm and linking this to strategic choice in the analysis process
- Implementation and managing strategic change
- Finance & economics
- Cost, supply, and pricing strategies
- Basic economic theory and the firm
- International economic environment and globalisation
- Domestic macro-economic environment and policies
- Financial statements including balance sheet, profit & loss account and cash flow statement
- Accounting principles and concepts
- Sources of finance and investment decision making (including IRR, NPV)
- Analysis of financial statements (including concepts of depreciation, debt and inventory)
- Budgets & performance indicators (including Master Budget and Cash Budget)
- Cost of Capital & Capital Structure
- Marketing management
- Marketing management, strategies and plans
- The local and international marketing environment
- Target markets, segments and customers
- Research, analysis and interpretation
- Innovation: new products, services and market development
- Brands, branding and marketing communication and campaigns
- Managing and measuring marketing performance
- Delivering customer value
- Corporate finance
- Market efficiency, including the importance of financial markets, how markets receive information, how prices react to information and affect the corporate decision makers
- Objectives in corporate financial decision making and the real world conflicts of interest
- Investment analysis, including the mechanics of investment analysis, investment interactions and options
- Risk and returns, including nature of risk, models for risks and returns, and risk measurement in practice
- Financial restructuring: mergers and acquisitions
- Cost of capital and capital structure: the choice of financing, how firms take risk into account when making financing decisions, how firms find the right financing mix, and get to the optimal capital structure
- Valuation: present value and fundamentals of valuation, valuation of bonds, shares and companies
- Dividend policy: theory and practices
- Research methods
- Kinds of knowledge issues relating to the qualitative-quantitative distinction
- Types of organisational research
- Participatory and action research
- Implications for research of positivism, realism, critical management and other perspectives on management
- Research designs
- The logic and organisational pragmatics of selecting an organisational research topic
- Analysing information, including statistical methods, discourse analysis, cognitive mapping
- Sources and methods of collecting information: surveys, databases, observational data
- Summarising research and drawing conclusions
- Risk management and regulation
- Fundamentals of Value at Risk (VaR)
- Review of statistical tools for measuring risk
- Managing interest rate and forex risk with derivatives
- Asset/Liability Management and interest rate and currency risk
- Strengths and limitations of the Basel Accords with respect to risk management
- Credit Metrics, credit scoring and credit rating systems risk management
- Examination of specific risk based derivatives – credit default swaps, catastrophe bonds
- Stress testing, Monte Carlo simulations of abnormal returns distributions
- Understand the concepts of credit rating and role of the major Credit Ratings Agencies (CRA’s)
- Settlement risk – contrast between OTC products and central clearing houses
- Role of political action groups and commercial lobbying
- Examine the role of major global regulators, supervisory and (quasi) regulatory bodies
- Review of Financial Stability Board guidelines on SIFI’s
- Key elements of Basel III – does it counter weaknesses of Basel II?
- Securities and derivative products
- Securitization – how it works, risks, benefits
- Sovereign & government Bonds - issuance, ratings, risk profiles
- Issuance of equity securities, equity market platforms and trade execution
- Time value of money and sensitivity to changes in interest rates
- Clearing, Settlement and Safe Custody - contrast OTC with central clearing parties
- Foreign exchange instruments – spot, forwards, swaps
- Hedge Funds – strategies, fees, performance
- Characteristics of Collective Investment Schemes & Exchange-Traded Funds
- Futures contracts – specifications, margin requirements
- Financial ratios - Profitability, Liquidity, Gearing
- Principles/mechanics in the swaps markets
- Black Scholes and binomial tree methods of options pricing
- Active and passive strategies – index tracking, stock picking
- Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
- Portfolio management styles and allocation strategies
- Correlations among asset returns – impact on benefits from diversification
- Governance in banks and financial institutions
- Distinguish between ethical issues and legal issues
- Ethics as moral principles which govern good behaviour
- Rewards, bonuses should be adjusted for risk
- Business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR)
- Privacy and protection to whistle-blowers
- Claw backs and deferred compensation structures
- Ethics and inter-generational issues
- How do businesses ensure that directors, managers and employees act ethically?
- External costs – transfers of financial liabilities to public sector
- Public balance sheet issues – interest, entitlements, unfunded liabilities
- What is sustainable growth? – short term versus long term horizons
- Trade off economic growth and resource depletion/environmental degradation
- Socially responsible investing – screening investments, green issues
