Finance is a decision-oriented discipline that is complex, challenging and dynamic. It's about managing money and capital in the real world: making practical financial decisions that can add value to a business and the economy. Finance focuses on several main areas investments (including portfolio theory), corporate finance (how businesses make internal financial decisions), derivatives (the study of financial securities deriving their value from other assets values), international finance (finance across borders) and personal finance. An understanding of finance is essential to business and finance majors succeed in rewarding and highly-paid careers. Two recent trends have fuelled the value of finance as a mature, globally recognised profession and underpin its relevance for the 21st century. The first is the world-wide move to deregulation and the opening of markets which has coincided with an almost universal appreciation of the importance of capital and investment for growth and prosperity. The second is the rush of theoretical developments in the discipline which has provided the tools to manage risk and return. The impact has been extreme. There are few businesses today that are not acutely aware of the significance of markets and financial planning for their viability.