Program Overview

University of Cape Town Programs

The University of Cape Town offers various programs through its Faculty of Commerce.

Faculty of Commerce

The Faculty of Commerce is composed of several departments, including:

• College of Accounting
• Finance and Tax
• School of Economics
• Education Development Unit (EDU)
• Information Systems
• School of Management Studies
  • Actuarial Science
  • Applied Management (Postgraduate Diplomas)
  • Marketing
  • Industrial and Organisational Psychology
  • Professional Communication
• The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance
• Commerce IT (IT support)

Department of Finance & Tax

The Department of Finance & Tax offers several programs, including:

Undergraduate Programmes

• BBusSc specialising in Finance with Accounting
• BBusSc specialising in Finance, Investment and Banking

Postgraduate Programmes

• Bachelor of Commerce Honours in Finance
• Master of Applied Finance
• MCom in Finance in the field of Corporate Finance and Valuations
• MCom in Finance in the field of Financial Management
• MCom in Finance in the field of Investment Management
• PhD in Finance
• Bachelor of Commerce Honours in Taxation
• MCom/LLM specialising in International Taxation
• MCom in Taxation in the field of South African Income Tax
• PhD in Taxation
• MCom in Risk Management of Financial Markets
• Master of Financial Engineering

BBusSc specialising in Finance with Accounting

The Bachelor of Business Science specialising in Finance with Accounting degree is designed for students who want to qualify as Chartered Accountants. This qualification is the first step to become a CA (SA) registered with SAICA while getting a solid grounding in the related discipline of finance. Finance and accounting are strongly interconnected and make for a potent combination. Finance is concerned with the sourcing, allocation and investment of funds. It is both a science (based on rigorous theory and quantitative models) and art (requires judgment and insights into human behaviour). Thus, it is a highly diverse discipline, which overlaps with accounting, economics, mathematics, politics, psychology, strategy, statistics and many other fields.

For the CA (SA) career path specifically, there are two routes at UCT: either the three-year BCom Chartered Accountant degree or the four-year BBusSc Finance with Accounting degree. After finishing either of these degrees, students wishing to pursue the CA route must complete a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (PGDA) before writing the SAICA board exams (a vital requirement of the CA professional qualification).

The focus of the BBusSc Finance with Accounting degree is, as the name implies, finance and accounting, which it takes up to the fourth - and third-year levels, respectively. Because of the fourth-year finance content, this degree is an honours-level degree. Further, because it is a four-year programme, this degree also includes elements of a range of other disciplines, such as human resources, statistics, marketing etc. Thus, even without the PGDA, the BBusSc Finance with Accounting degree opens up career options not only in accounting but because of its finance component, also in the broader financial and investment industries.

Through (mainly) its accounting component, the BBusSc Finance with Accounting degree covers the required undergraduate SAICA curriculum for eventually progressing towards the SAICA board exams. This degree is also an affiliate degree of the US-based CFA Institute, which offers the Chartered Financial Analyst professional qualification for investment and financial professionals. This course covers a large proportion of the curriculum for at least the first level of the CFA exams.