Free Introduction To Finance Courses Online

If you want to build a strong foundation in finance without spending money, then free online introduction to finance courses are a great option. Whether you are interested in investment banking, corporate finance, taxes, financial modelling, or general finance concepts, many free finance courses are available at your perusal from the best online course providers to help you get started. Let us check out some of the finance courses under various categories. 

Top Introduction to Finance Courses 

We have listed some top free online Introduction to Finance with their short descriptions. Categorized on the basis of main topics of finance - 

Free Finance Courses: Fundamental Concepts 

Explore the basics of finance through these courses - 

Free Taxation Courses

Learn how to manage your or your client’s taxes with the help of these handpicked taxation courses - 

Free Investment Banking Courses

Free Corporate Finance Courses

How to Learn Finance Fundamentals for Free

Here are some tips to help you build a solid foundation in finance without breaking the bank -

1. Explore Free Online Courses

There are some free courses with which you can learn at your own pace: you can audit them for free or access simple learning materials.

• Online Course Providers: Online course platforms like Coursera, edX, Udemy, etc., offer a range of beginner-level free courses on finance, investment banking, and other related topics from top universities. If you are okay with not getting certificates of completion, we recommend you look at Free Finance Courses from Coursera, apart from those marked free.
• YouTube Channels: Wall Street Mojo, Corporate Finance Institute, and many more channels offer free video tutorials on financial modelling, valuation modelling, Mergers & Acquisitions, etc.

We have listed some handpicked courses under various skills below. Keep reading

2. Utilize Open Finance Educational Resources

• MIT OpenCourseWare: Get free finance and economics courses from MIT that include lecture notes, assignments, and exams. Some examples include - AP® Microeconomics, Just Money: Banking as if Society Mattered, The Analytics Edge, Mathematical Methods for Quantitative Finance, Adaptive Markets: Financial Market Dynamics and Human Behavior, Foundations of Modern Finance I & II, Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship Finance, Real Estate Finance and Investment, among others.
• Project Gutenberg: Project Gutenberg is a library of over 75,000 free eBooks. You can find classic finance books like The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, International Finance by Hartley Withers, etc., which you can read for free.
• Free e-Books and Guides: Guides to financial modelling or investment banking are available at the educational sites of Investopedia and Corporate Finance Institute, and they are mostly free.
• Money and Banking: Textbook by Robert Wright, NYU. Available on Open Textbook.
• Personal Finance: Textbook by Rachel Siegel, Lyndon State University and Carol Yacht, University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.
• OER Commons materials in Finance: Includes hundreds of resources on Finance.
• Open Textbook Library resources in Finance

3. Practice with Free Tools

• Google Sheets or Excel Online: To practice finance modelling without spending money on software like Excel, you can learn about creating a financial model and DCF (Discounted Cash Flow) models, among others.
• Free Templates: Websites like Macabacus and Investopedia provide free templates and step-by-step guides on learning stock valuation techniques and financial modelling.

4. Online Communities

Wall Street Oasis and Reddit's r/personalfinance and r/FinancialCareers are some of the top finance forums to join. You can discuss with people, ask for help, and answer mock case studies presented. You get to learn about real-world applications from professionals. 

Other online resources like Bogleheads forum, The Stackexchange, Discuss Personal Finance Forum, The Lemon Fool, The Money Shed forum, etc., can be a great place to learn from others, get advice, and find resources related to the basics of personal finance, corporate finance, investment banking, investing, stock markets, and much more. Remember to exercise caution and do your research before making any financial decisions.

5. Gain Practical Experience

• Internships or Volunteering: Look for unpaid internships or volunteer opportunities where you can apply your financial knowledge. Non-profits and small businesses are often open to financial planning and strategy assistance, giving you hands-on experience.
• Boot Camps: Websites like Corporate Finance Institute often conduct boot camps mainly focused on practical skills such as Financial modelling in Excel and financial statement analysis free of cost.

7. Keep Up with Financial News

Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, and Bloomberg: Free news sites provide you with updated financial news, stock movements, and market dynamics so you can understand how the concepts you are learning apply to real-world scenarios.

Conclusion 

With the rise of fintech and digital banking, these top online course providers also offer courses on trending finance topics such as cryptocurrency, decentralized finance (DeFi), sustainable finance, digital finance, etc. These free courses also ensure that your learning is well-rounded. They cover hands-on projects, quizzes, case studies, and real-world applications that make learning more practical. Using these resources allows the beginner to get all the necessary financial information without spending any money.