Introduction to Financial Mathematics (IFM)

Resources for Introduction to Financial Mathematics (IFM) - for more information about the course, please see course outlines.

Study skills

You may be interested in the MLC's seminars on doing a maths exam and writing and using a cheat sheet.

Assumed knowledge

This course uses a lot of mathematical notation. This seminar on understanding mathematical notation will be helpful.

This course also assumes you are familiar with the rules for for working with numbers and algebra. The MLC has a series of seminars online talking about these fundamental maths skills. 

Functions

For alternative explanations and practice exercises on the various types of functions in this course, you can download the books from our bridging courses MathsStart and MathsTrack.

For the topic of polynomials, this document describes various relationships between the polynomial's formula and its graph:

There is also this lecture given for MathsTrack students on polynomials:

This revision seminar was given in 2018. The first hour discussed inverse functions and logarithms.

This revision seminar was given in 2022. David David discussed functions (at the start), including linear and quadratic functions, as well as inverse functions (56m11s).

Matrices

For alternative explanations and also practice exercises for most of the concepts in this part of the course, you can download the books from our bridging course MathsTrack, or watch the matching videos: 

There are also lectures given for MathsTrack on these topics that you might find useful:

This revision seminar from 2014 was given for another course, but the content is similar to the content in IFM. In particular, the first part covered the sizes of matrices, matrix addition, multiplication and powers, and transposes. (Note that the end of this seminar uses concepts not in IFM, so stop the video at the point where we talk about "span".) 

Revision seminars in order of time

The MLC has given revision seminars for IFM for many years, and these are organised here with the newest seminars at the top. Each seminar covers several different topics based on requests from the students.

2022

The 2022 revision seminar included functions (at the start), including linear and quadratic functions, as well as inverse functions (56m11s), and a little bit on the simplex method (1h20m10s).

2021

The 2021 seminar included quadratic functions, matrix determinants, and, annuities due and deferred annuities.

2019

The 2019 seminar included inverse functions, the bisection method, the simplex method, and inverse matrices,

2018

The 2018 seminar included inverse functions and logarithms, and three specific problems about equilibrium points, linear systems of equations, and parts-listing.

2015

The 2015 seminar  included open and closed Leontief models, converting interest rates, logarithms, and deferred annuities.

2014

The 2014 seminar included  the bisection method, parts-listing matrices, converting interest rates, present values of perpetuities, optimisation word problems, sketching polynomials, and finding limits.