Finance in the Middle East and North Africa

This module introduces students to the functioning processes of MENA’s financial sector including banking, enterprise financing, stock markets, bond markets, exchange rates and monetary policy. This course is designed to provide students with a fundamental understanding of how MENA’s financial institutions work, including the Islamic banking sector and its successes and failures. The topics to be covered include financial market transition, the development of domestic stock markets, and monetary policies. The course concludes by asking how far international best-practices and standards can be integrated into MENA’s financial system.

Prerequisites

A prerequisite for this module is Financial Strategy 151030012 in Term 1

Objectives and learning outcomes of the module

At the end of the module students should be able to:

• Discuss the international financial market implications of the growth of market economies in the MENA region
• Explain the key characteristics of Islamic banking, the features that distinguish Islamic banking from other international banking systems and assess the contribution it makes to the development of MENA economies
• Understand the key features of the individual MENA banking systems, and their recent growth and development
• Outline the key features of capital market development in MENA and discuss the different challenges faced MENA countries in terms of enterprise financing, developing active stock markets, and liquid bond markets.
• Critically evaluate the relationship between domestic and international financial markets and assess the efforts of the MENA countries in facilitating cross-border capital flows
• Evaluate the prospects of convergence with international practices in corporate governance, regulation and banking and assess its implications for the countries of the MENA region

Disclaimer

Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules