Check Out These Free Online Financial Courses from True Potential and the Open University Business School

​​​​We believe that a major cause of the UK ‘Savings Gap’ is a lack of financial education. In fact, research by the Open University found that 70% of UK adults answered GCSE level personal finance questions incorrectly.

Understanding your finances is the first step in a long journey to your financial goals. Learning about personal finance can help you to plan and invest for you and your family’s future.

We think the more you know, the easier it is to make decisions. That is why we want to help you make informed choices about your personal finances. While financial planning and investing is often thought of as complicated, we think it can be simple and even fun. You just need to know a little information and develop some basic skills.

True Potential have partnered with the Open University Business School to establish the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance, a pioneering Centre of Excellence for research in the development of personal financial capabilities. The aim of the Centre is simple: empower the UK public to better manage their finances. Working with the Open University, True Potential deliver three free personal finance courses aimed at anyone interested in improving his or her financial knowledge:

Course 1: Managing My Money

The first personal finance course, ‘Managing My Money’, was presented on FutureLearn in Spring of 2014 as part of their MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) program and has become one of their most popular modules. The course is now available on its permanent home, the Open University’s OpenLearn.

This course aims to improve your personal finance skills. You will learn how to create a budget and use it to make better spending choices. The course also covers debts, investments and how mortgages work. You will also explore pension planning and the different types of insurance you might consider.

You can learn at your own pace with OpenLearn or take a structured and moderated course with FutureLearn.

Sign up on OpenLearn or sign up on FutureLearn.

Course 2: Managing My Investments

On this free online course, you’ll learn about different investment choices, the returns and risks associated with each, and the evidence about their historical performance. You’ll explore investment strategies, as well as the practicalities about involvement in personal finance markets. And you’ll look at how to avoid the individual and group behavioural traits that can impair effective investment decision-making.

Sign up on OpenLearn or sign up on FutureLearn.

Course 3: Managing My Financial Journey

This course studies the financial services providers – the banks, building societies and insurance companies as well as the intermediaries like independent financial advisers (IFAs) – and the regulations relating to the way financial products are sold. The modules also explores the rights that consumers of financial services have, including how to make complaints and seek compensation.

Sign up on OpenLearn or sign up on FutureLearn.

If you would like to talk about any of these courses or need more general help with your finances, please get in touch with us.