Week 2: Introduction to the Financial System 1.1 Functions of a financial market * Markets are the process that facilitates the exchange of things of values. These things of value are often categorised as real assets, such as a house or a car, and financial assets, such as a loan to buy a house or car. These could take place in a non-formal market place, non-market exchanges can be very time consuming. * It brings opposite parties together. If not, those with needs must go everywhere to find the items themselves e.g. milk at farms. This enables double coincidence of wants that is necessary before an exchange can take place * Money acts as a medium of exchange and solves the divisibility problem.
(e.g. bag of potatoes might be worth half of the left rump, but a person would not just take off a rump from a living cow and directly exchange).
Other roles include store of value (saving of individuals’ surplus earning).
The funds saved by surplus units- those savers with current excess funds- can be put to use by those whose current demand for goods and services is greater than their current available funds. (Deficit units) * Financial institutions and markets facilitate financial transactions between the providers of funds and the users of funds. * Financial assets are represented by financial instrument that states how much has been borrowed, and when and how much is to be repaid by the borrower. E.g. money invested in a term deposit with a bank, the bank will issue a term deposit receipt. This is a financial instrument. * Buyers of financial instruments are lenders that have excess funds today and want to invest and transfer that purchasing power to the future. The sellers of the instruments are those deficit units that are short of funds today, but expect to have a surplus amount in the future which will enable the repayment. * A