LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon the successful completion of this module, the student should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of the pricing of financial assets, the role and application of finance theory and the operation of financial markets.
2. Critically discuss bank performance criteria and valuation methods and demonstrate a detailed understanding of contemporary issues in bank management
The first sign of the 2008 financial crises, that collapsed the entire financial system of predominantly the developed economies started in 2007, was when the real estate market started to collapse. In addition, there were delinquencies in the underwritten mortgages after the crises began to spike. All of these led to serious recession in many developed economies which were similar to the great depression. When the real estate prices began to collapse, several investors decided to short some real estate deals. Some prearranged deals collapsed, and several banks stopped investing in mortgages. As a result, some banks were forced to underwrite some of their mortgage investments, and all of these led to a freezing of billions of dollars that were supposed to be invested in the real estate business.
As a response, several central bankers and government advisers decided to flood the market with money and other liquidity by increasing the government spending, reducing interest rates, providing financial assistance to several financial institutions. Because of all these stimulus packages that were being enacted in developed economies as a result of this crises, the value of their currencies was falling while the prices for agricultural commodities, oil and gas, etc was rising. Throughout this period, the market value of several of these financial institutions that had significant mortgage exposure was dwindling. Several of these institutions were forced to merge with others, some received capital infusion from other investors including sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, etc. Others received government subsidies to avoid collapsing while some collapsed completely. As a result of this, many bankers lost their jobs. As analysed above, several reforms were enacted to limit the impact of the financial crises on the different stakeholders.
In light of the discussions above, answer the following questions:
1) Identify the key laws, regulations and contracts that were enacted post the 2008 financial crises by the UK, US or EU authorities and other key players in the financial system to end the financial crises.
2) Critically review the extent to which you think that these reforms have contributed towards stabilising the financial system and the different banking institutions post the 2008 crises.
3) Choose any publicly listed company and analyse the extent to which these reforms have had an impact on their business model and their level of compliance/non-compliance to these reforms
You are also required to make a 20-min presentation of your report during the last lecture of the term, and feedback to the presentation can then be incorporated into your final submission. Although the presentation carries no weightings to the final module grades, it is a great exercise to build confidence and communication skills that you will need in your future careers.
1. Engagement with Literature Skills
Your work must be informed and supported by scholarly material that is relevant to and focused on the task(s) set; you should make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources, as appropriate (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline). You should provide evidence that you have accessed a wide range of sources, which may be academic, governmental and industrial; these sources may include academic journal articles, textbooks, current news articles, organisational documents, and websites. You should consider the credibility of your sources; academic journals are normally highly credible sources while websites require careful consideration/selection and should be used sparingly. Any sources you use should be current and up-to-date, mostly published within the last five years or so, though seminal/important works in the field may be older. You must provide evidence of your research/own reading throughout your work, using correctly a suitable referencing system, including in-text citations in the main body of your work and a reference list at the end of your work.
2. Knowledge and Understanding Skills At level 7,
you should be able to demonstrate a systematic understanding of knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of your academic discipline, field of study or area of professional practice, with a comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable to your own research or advanced scholarship. Your work must demonstrate your growing mastery of these concepts, principles, current challenges, innovation and insights associated with the subject area. Knowledge relates to the facts, information and skills you have acquired through your learning. You demonstrate your understanding by interpreting the meaning of the facts and information (knowledge). This means that you need to select and include in your work the contemporary concepts, techniques, models, theories, etc. appropriate to the task(s) set. You should be able to explain the theories, concepts, etc. meaningfully to show your understanding. Your mark/grade will also depend upon the extent to which you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding; ideally each should be complete and detailed, with comprehensive coverage
3. Cognitive and Intellectual Skills
You should be able to: evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline; evaluate methodologies and develop critiques of them and, where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses; deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively to make sound judgements in the absence of complete data. Your work must contain evidence of logical, analytical thinking, evaluation and synthesis. For example, to examine and break information down into parts, make inferences, compile, compare and contrast information. This means not just describing what! But also justifying: Why? How? When? Who? Where? At what cost? At all times, you must provide justification for your arguments and judgements. Evidence that you have reflected upon the ideas of experts within the subject area is crucial to you providing a reasoned and informed debate within your work. Your choice of methodologies to gather data and information must be rigorously defended. Furthermore, you should provide evidence that you are able to make sound judgements and convincing arguments using data and concepts. Sound, valid, persuasive conclusions are necessary and must be derived from the content of your work. Where relevant, alternative solutions and recommendations may be proposed.
4. Practical Skills Page 4 of 11 At level 7,
you should be able to demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in the discipline. This includes acting autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level, originality in tackling and solving problems, and decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts or situations. You should be able to demonstrate mastery of the leading edge subject-related concepts and ideas as they relate to real world situations and/or particular contexts. How do they work in practice? You will deploy models, methods, techniques, and/or theories, in those contexts or circumstances, to assess current situations, perhaps to formulate plans or plausible, justifiable recommendations to solve problems, or to propose new models, or to create artefacts, which may be innovative and creative, thereby demonstrating your understanding of how the boundaries of knowledge are advanced through research and/or application. This is likely to involve, for instance, the use of real world artefacts, examples and cases, the application of a model within an organisation and/or benchmarking one theory or organisation against others.
5. Transferable Skills for Life and Professional Practice
Your work must provide evidence of the qualities and transferable skills necessary for postgraduate-level employment in circumstances requiring sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative in complex and unpredictable professional environments. This includes demonstrating: the independent learning ability for continuing professional development to advance existing skills and acquire new competences of a professional nature that will enable you to assume significant responsibility within organisations; that you can initiate and complete tasks, projects and procedures, whether individually and/or collaboratively, to a professional level; that you can use appropriate media to effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms for a variety of audiences; fluency of expression; clarity and effectiveness in presentation and organisation. Work should be coherent and well-structured in presentation and organisation.
