Finance is a very broad term that refers to various financial activities related to banking, borrowing, debt, equities, capital markets, bonds, money, and securities. Essentially, finance represents the entire process of getting needed financial resources and managing them. Additionally, finance also encompasses the analysis, creation, administration, and management of financial assets, banking, credits, investments, and securities that constitute the financial environment.
The discipline of finance has many different subsets. The most common subsets include financial economics, political economy, social finance, public finance, microeconomics, and asset pricing. All of these areas of finance are important and play an important role in the understanding of financial decisions. Each area of finance has an objective and uses various techniques to get to the desired end result. These techniques are used in order to provide information about how the economic activity of the country is affecting the financial future of that country. For instance, in the case of economics, the objective is to provide knowledge on how the supply and demand of money and other goods and services affect the overall economy.
Another part of finance is business finance. Business finance concerns itself with the behavior of businesses as they make financial decisions. The objective of business finance is to assess the expected savings, investment, sale, income, cost, profits, as well as other aspects that directly affect the growth and development of businesses. That is why it is imperative for business owners to understand savings, investment, and other aspects of business finances.
Social finance refers to the actions that individuals take to ensure that their monetary assets are distributed as efficiently as possible to other individuals or groups. Some of the social objectives of public finance are to provide assistance to minorities, to students, to the disabled, to women, to farmers, to the elderly, to the needy, to victims of disasters, and so on. The ultimate objective of social finance is to ensure that each individual has the resources necessary for survival. Social finance is therefore intimately connected to the other aspects of finance such as saving, investing, business financing, corporate finance, investment, debt management, tax planning, estate planning, and social security planning.
Personal finance includes the financial activities of an individual’s home and other financial assets. In personal finance, goals are set and financial transactions are made to reach those goals. While goals of saving and investing are personal, those of retirement are corporate. In personal finance, personal assets may be used for their value or they may be employed for other purposes such as paying debts and obligations.
Public enterprises such as the central banks are involved in the field of personal finance. The role of central banks is to maintain a stable currency and to stabilize interest rates. Central banks usually engage in currency market operations through interest rate policies and other financial activities to keep the national money system functioning smoothly.
Corporate finance refers to the buying and selling of organizations’ assets in order to realize profits. In order to be successful in corporate finance, companies should develop financial planning processes that are aligned with their corporate goals and objectives. In addition, financial planning must include comprehensive evaluation of internal and external risks, strategies for minimizing losses, risk management, and adequate capital budgeting.
In retirement planning, people seek methods and strategies for saving for the retirement and health benefits that they will need in old age. In retirement planning, people also look for methods and strategies for saving for the eventual purchase of a home after they retire. In both cases, people engage in personal finance, corporate finance, and retirement planning in order to achieve their retirement goals. These practices form the basic components of effective financial management. Proper management of these three areas is necessary if people are to have a comfortable and secure retirement.