Finance & Investing
Courses on money: personal finance and pensions, investing and markets, accounting and financial analysis, and the economics underneath them.
Verified courses first, then the rest of the category
Darden’s foundational accounting course, aimed at reading financial statements rather than preparing them. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
The advanced continuation of Illinois’ financial accounting sequence. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
The foundational accounting course in Illinois’ sequence, before its advanced topics course. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Illinois’ financial management specialization, drawn from its online MBA teaching. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Robert Shiller’s Yale course on financial markets, running seven modules across risk management, behavioural finance, stocks and bonds, the mortgage crisis, options, and investment banking. One of the most widely taken finance courses published anywhere, and taught by a Nobel laureate in economics.
Not independently verified
Reading and interpreting company accounts, which is the skill that turns published financial statements into something you can act on. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
How individual firms behave within markets, sitting between introductory microeconomics and strategy. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Michigan’s finance specialization framed around decisions rather than around instruments. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Wharton’s introduction to corporate finance, covering how firms value decisions and raise money, taught as a university course rather than as investing advice. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
An introduction to environmental, social and governance reporting, from a finance training provider rather than an advocacy organisation. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Wharton’s combined finance and accounting specialization, the natural starting point of its business sequence. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Wharton’s introduction to financial accounting, part of its Business Foundations sequence. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Portfolio construction taught through Python, from a business school with a strong quantitative finance reputation. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
A single concept taught properly: the time value of money, which underpins every valuation and lending decision that follows it. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Intuit’s bookkeeping certificate, a route into paid bookkeeping work published by the company that makes the accounting software most small businesses already use.
Not independently verified
The University of Geneva’s investment management specialization, taught from one of the world’s private banking centres. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Personal finance aimed specifically at young adults, covering budgeting, borrowing and the decisions that compound early. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
A standard university microeconomics course from Illinois, covering how prices, firms and markets behave. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
A four-hour review of money, work and health at midlife, treating them as one set of connected decisions rather than three separate subjects. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
A personal finance course produced with MoneySavingExpert, covering everyday money decisions rather than investing theory. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
Personal and household financial planning from the University of Florida, one of the few university courses on money at the level people actually live it. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Bocconi’s course on private equity and venture capital, covering how these funds are structured and how they decide, from a European business school perspective. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Financial analysis taught through Python and statistics rather than spreadsheets, which puts it between the finance and data sections of this catalog. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
The reconciliation and statement work that closes a bookkeeping cycle, from Intuit’s academy. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
About this subject
Courses about money: household finance and pensions, investing and how markets behave, accounting and financial analysis, and the economics those subjects rest on. Much of this catalogue comes from universities and non-profit publishers rather than from firms selling a financial product, which is worth knowing before you start. Every listing states whether it has been independently verified; most have not.
Guidance
Verification tells you that a course delivers the material it advertises. It cannot tell you whether the approach it teaches is right for your money. These are the things worth checking yourself.
A course can explain how index funds, pensions or company accounts work. It cannot know your income, your debts, your tax position or your timeline, and nothing in this directory is a personal recommendation. Be especially careful with material that moves from explaining a mechanism to telling you what to buy. In many countries giving individual investment advice is a regulated activity, and a course is not a substitute for someone who is authorised to give it.
A university course on portfolio construction and a brokerage course on portfolio construction can cover the same theory with different incentives behind it. Neither is disqualifying, and vendor material is often the best source on that vendor’s own tools. It is simply a fact worth having. Each listing here names the publisher, and where a course is taught around a company’s own product the summary says so.
Tax, pensions and consumer protection are national. A course on retirement accounts, tax-advantaged wrappers or filing obligations may be precise and current and still be about somewhere you do not live. Personal finance courses are the most affected; corporate finance, accounting principles and economics travel much better.
This catalogue spans household budgeting through to graduate corporate finance and quantitative modelling. Someone deciding what to do with a first pension needs something quite different from someone learning to read a balance sheet professionally. The level on each listing is recorded from what the provider states, and the summary usually says who the course is pitched at.
Interest rates, tax rules and pension regulations change, and a course recorded some years ago can be accurate about principles while out of date about numbers. Where a provider publishes a last-updated date we record it. Where they do not, the listing shows only the date we checked the page, which tells you about our research rather than about the course.
Standards
The published standard applies unchanged. These are the checks that tend to matter most in this subject.
A verification says nothing about whether the strategy a course teaches will make or lose you money, and nothing about whether it suits your circumstances. We do not assess investment merit and we never will.
Questions
No. Verified means the course is real and broadly matches what it advertises. It is not a judgement on the financial approach being taught, and it is not financial advice. If you need advice about your own money, speak to someone authorised to give it where you live.
It depends on the subject. Accounting principles, corporate finance and economics travel well. Anything touching tax, pensions or regulated products is usually written for one country, and the listing names the publisher so you can judge.
Universities and non-profit publishers account for much of this part of the catalogue, and they publish openly. Where a course is free to take but charges for a certificate or an exam, the listing says so rather than describing it simply as free.
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