POKHARA UNIVERSITY
Bachelor of Business Administration in Banking and Insurance (BBA–BI)
Program Objectives
The Bachelor of Business Administration in Banking and Insurance (BBA–BI) program of Pokhara University provides students with sound conceptual foundation and practical skills in various areas of banking, finance and insurance. This program aims to produce graduates who:
- have a sound knowledge base and proper conceptual underpinnings of business management, banking, finance and insurance,
- are well acquainted with the broad contexts of business organizations in Nepal and outside,
- possess analytical and problem-solving skills,
- have the ability to work in teams and individually, and
- are competent in written and oral communication, including the ability to use electronic media and computers for business communication.
Curricular Structure
The curriculum comprises the following five distinct components:
- Foundation Courses: These courses develop students’ communication skill and provide them with strong foundation in economics, behavioral science, statistics, mathematics, information technology, and legal environment of business.
- Management Core Courses: These courses will help students to understand the basic principles and practices in the functional areas of management.
- Banking and Insurance Core Courses: These courses will help students to understand principles and practices in the basic and functional areas of banking and insurance.
- Elective Courses: These courses will help students to develop specialized and focused skills in the areas of their choice.
- Project Work and Internship: Students need to take an independent capstone project that carries the weight of 3 credit hours. The project involves fieldwork and its empirical analysis. Students must follow the prescribed formats to prepare such reports. Besides this, a student also needs to do an internship in a business organization for six to eight weeks. Aimed to provide an opportunity to gain real-life experience, this course also helps the students to apply theoretical understanding to action. The internship carries the weight of 3 credit hours.
Program Features
The BBA–BI is a four-year program structured in eight semesters. A student needs to complete 120 credit hours of course work, project work and internship for graduation.
Besides lectures, the classes are facilitated by case studies, group discussions, project assignments, field visits, class presentations and other teaching methods. In order to develop communication and interpersonal skills, students are emphasized to participate in class activities, group discussions and individual presentations.
The medium of instruction and examination for this program will be English, and a student is expected to have good English language proficiency with acceptable communication skill.
The Semester System
The prominent feature of the semester system is the continuous evaluation of a student’s performance, and flexibility given to the students to progress at pace suited to his/her individual ability as per the credit requirements.
The credit hour assigned to each course of this program varies depending on its lecture, tutorial and practical work hours in a week. One lecture/contact hour per week per semester is assigned one credit. That is, a three credit hours course has 48 class hours. A faculty member is assigned to teach each of the courses. If the course is taught by more than one faculty member, then one of the members is designated as the coordinator of that course.
Entry Requirements and Admission Procedures
Eligibility
The entry requirement for a new student in BBA-BI will be Intermediate or Higher Secondary level (10+2) or Proficiency Certificate Level (PCL), or equivalent as recognized by Pokhara University. In addition, the student must pass the entrance test conducted by the concerned college.
Documents Required
The applicant is required to submit the following documents with the application form made available by the concerned college/school by paying a predetermined fee:
- Completed and signed BBA-BI application form
- Official transcripts from the academic institutions previously attended.
Certificates of all degrees should be photocopied and submitted with proper attestation. Enrolment is conditional upon completion of all admission formalities including payment of all fees as determined by the college. Incomplete applications shall not be processed.
Admission Procedures
A notice inviting applications for admission is publicly announced. Application forms and information brochures are provided, on request, after the payment of the prescribed fee.
The concerned college scrutinizes the application. The eligible candidates are informed to take the entrance test. The date and time for the entrance test are informed to the applicants by the concerned colleges. The college may also interview the candidates for the final selection for admission.
The candidates who are given provisional admission under special conditions are required to submit all necessary documents within a month after their regular classes begin. A student who fails to do so will have his/her admission cancelled.
Academic Schedule and Course Registration
An academic session consists of two semesters. The Fall Semester starts in September and the Spring Semester starts in March. Students are normally admitted to the program in the Fall Semester.
Students are required to register the courses by themselves from the concerned college at the beginning of each semester. Registration in absence may be allowed only in rare cases at the discretion of the principal. In normal cases, a student’s nominee will not be allowed for course registration of the concerned student, but he/she may complete other formalities.
Addition and Withdrawal from the Course
A student will have the option to add or drop from the course. This can, however, be done only during the first three weeks of the semester.
A student wishing to withdraw from a course should apply on the prescribed form within one month of the start of the semester.
Attendance Requirements
A student must attend every lecture, tutorial, seminar and practical class. However, to accommodate for late registration, sickness and other contingencies, the attendance requirements will be a minimum of 80% of the classes actually held. If a student is absent in the class for more than four weeks without the permission of the concerned authority, his/her name will be removed from the college roll.
Normal and Maximum Duration of Study
The duration for the completion of the program is as follows:
- Normal duration: 4 Years (8 Semesters)
- Maximum Duration: 8 Years
A full-time student has to take a minimum of 12 credits.
Evaluation System
A student’s academic performance in a course is evaluated in two phases:
- Internally by the concerned faculty member through quizzes, tutorials, lab works, home assignments, class tests, class participation, term papers, formal internal examination etc.
- Externally by the Office of the Controller of Examinations through semester-end examinations.
A fifty percent weight is given to each internal and external evaluation (semester-end examination). A student is required to pass the internal and external evaluations independently. The final grade awarded on the basis of his/her consolidated performance in both internal and external evaluations.
A student will get NOT QUALIFIED (NQ) status in the internal evaluation if his/her performance falls below the minimum requirement. Such students will not be allowed to appear in the semester-end examination of that particular course.
Evaluation of Elective Courses
The concerned school/college will conduct internal and semester-end examinations of the elective courses following the rules and directives of the Office of the Controller of Examination (OCE). The school/college must properly preserve answer copies and other necessary documents of these examinations and submit these to the Office of the Dean as and when instructed. The school/college must forward final grades of students to the OCE within 3 weeks after completion of semester-end examinations and the results should not be disclosed to students till formal notification is received from the OCE. The answer sheets must be preserved in sealed bags at the respective school/college for a period of six months.
Grading System
Pokhara University follows a four-point letter grade system. The letter grades awarded to students will be as follows:
| Grade | Grade Point | Description |
| A | 4.0 | Excellent |
| A- | 3.7 | |
| B+ | 3.3 | |
| B | 3.0 | Good |
| B- | 2.7 | |
| C+ | 2.3 | |
| C | 2.0 | Satisfactory |
| C- | 1.7 | |
| D+ | 1.3 | |
| D | 1.0 | Minimum Requirement |
| F | 0 | Fail |
In some rare and unusual circumstances, if a student is unable to complete all the required works for the course, he/she may be temporarily marked with an incomplete grade “I”. If all the required works are not completed within the following semester, the letter “I” will be automatically converted into “F”. The performance of a student is evaluated in terms of the following two indices:
- The semester grade point average (SGPA) which is the grade point average for the semester and is given by:
SGPA = Total honor points earned in a semester/ total number of credit hours taken in a semester.
- The cumulative grade point average (CGPA) which is the grade point average for all completed semester and is given by:
CGPA = Cumulative total honor points earned/ cumulative total number of credit hours taken.
Repeating a Course
A course may be taken only once for grade. Since passing of all courses individually is a degree requirement, the student must retake the failing course when offered and must successfully complete the course. A student will be allowed to retake maximum of two courses to achieve a minimum CGPA of 2.0. The grade earned on the retake examination will substitute the earlier grade earned by the student in that course. A student can retake a course only when it is offered by the college/university.
Credit Transfer and Withdrawal
Up to 25% of the total credit hours of the courses completed in an equivalent program of a recognized institution may be transferred/ waived for credit on the recommendation of the principal of the college. For the credit transfer, a student must receive a “B” or above grade in respective course. Courses taken earlier than five years from the time of transfer may not be accepted for the credit transfer. However, a student transferring from one program to another program of Pokhara University may receive a credit transfer of all the compatible courses completed with at least a “C” grade.
A student may apply for withdrawal from the entire semester only on medical grounds. The principal will examine the application for semester withdrawal, and depending on the gravity of the case, he/she will make the decision. No partial withdrawal from the courses registered in a semester will be considered.
Project Work
Students are required to do an independent capstone project that involves fieldwork and its empirical analysis. At the end, the students must prepare a report of this work in the prescribed format and submit it to the authorized person/body. The objective of these project works is to develop students’ skills in research, particularly in areas of data collection, processing, analysis, and report writing. These reports will be evaluated by the concerned authority.
Internship
Students need to do an internship as approved by the college. The purpose of internship is to provide students with the real-life, on-the-job exposure and an opportunity to apply theoretical concepts in real-life situation. Students’ interest and intended area of concentration are taken into account while making the internship placement decisions.
Unfair Means
Students are strictly forbidden from adopting any unfair means in class assignments, tests, report-writing and final examination.
The following would be considered as adoption of unfair means during examination:
- Communication with fellow students for help.
- Copying from another student’s script/report/paper.
- Copying from disk, palm of hand, mobile phone, or other incriminating documents.
- Processing from any incriminating documents, whether used or not.
- Any direct or indirect approach to influence teacher for the grade.
- Unruly behavior which disrupts academic program.
If the instructor detects a student using unfair means, the student may be given an ‘F’ at the discretion of the Examination Board. Adoption of unfair means may further result in the expulsion of the student from the program, college and the University as well.
Provision for Re-totaling and Rechecking
Students may apply for re-totaling or rechecking of their grades as per the University rules.
Dismissal from the Program
A student must obtain 2.0 CGPA at the undergraduate level. If his/her performance in the past semesters does not show the possibility of maintaining this CGPA, he/she may be dismissed from the program.
Degree Requirements
For graduation a student should:
- earn at least a ‘D’ grade in each course as specified in the grading system section,
- complete the internship with ‘Pass’ grade,
- complete all the courses, project work and internship as specified in the curricular structure, section within the maximum time period mentioned in the duration of study section,
- maintain at least 2 CGPA.
Distinction and Dean’s List
A student who obtains 3.6 CGPA or above will receive the BBA-BI degree with distinction. The Dean’s list recognizes outstanding academic performances in the FMS. To qualify, a student must have 3.7 CGPA or above.
CURRICULUM STRUCTURE
Foundation Courses (33 Credit Hours)
ENG 101 English I 3
ENG 102 English II 3
MTH 101 Business Mathematics I 3
MTH 102 Business Mathematics II 3
STT 101 Business Statistics 3
STT 201 Data Analysis and Modeling 3
ECO 101 Introductory Microeconomics 3
ECO 201 Introductory Macroeconomics 3
ENG 203 Business Communication 3
SOC 101 Fundamentals of Sociology 3
PSY 101 General Psychology 3
Management Core Courses (45 Credit Hours)
MGT 111 Principles of Management 3
MIS 201 Introduction to Management Information Systems 3
MGT 211 Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour 3
ACC 121 Financial Accounting I 3
ACC 122 Financial Accounting II 3
FIN 131 Essentials of Finance 3
FIN 231 Financial Management 3
ACC 221 Basics of Managerial Accounting 3
RCH 311 Business Research Methods 3
MKT 241 Principles of Marketing 3
MGT 311 Fundamentals of Operations Management 3
MGT 314 Management of Human Resources 3
MIS 301 Essentials of e-Business 3
MGT 411 Business Environment in Nepal 3
MGT 412 Strategic Management 3
Banking and Insurance Core Courses dit Horss (30 Credit Hours)
| FIN | 171 | Principles of Insurance | 3 |
| FIN | 232 | Management of Commercial Banks | 3 |
| FIN | 238 | Risk and Insurance Management | 3 |
| LAW | 292 | Legal Aspects of Banking and Insurance | 3 |
| FIN | 331 | Life and Health Insurance | 3 |
| FIN | 333 | Property and Liability Insurance | 3 |
| FIN | 334 | Treasury Management | 3 |
| FIN | 335 | Credit Risk Management | 3 |
| FIN | 337 | International Banking and insurance | 3 |
| FIN | 437 | Financial Institutions and Markets | 3 |
Electives (6 Credit Hours)
(Two courses from the following list)
| FIN | 431 | Corporate Finance | 3 |
| FIN | 432 | Microfinance | 3 |
| FIN | 433 | Investment Management | 3 |
| FIN | 436 | Fundamentals of Financial Derivatives | 3 |
| FIN | 438 | Trade Finance | 3 |
| FIN | 471 | Marketing of Banking and Insurance Products | 3 |
| FIN | 472 | IT for Banking and Insurance Services | 3 |
| FIN | 473 | Special Topics in Insurance | 3 |
Project Work and Internship (6 Credit Hours)
PRJ 492 Project Work (3 Credit Hours)
INT 392 Internship (3 Credit Hours)
Pokhara University
BBA-BI Program
CURRICULAR STRUCTURE AND COURSE CYCLE
| Semester I | Semester II | |||||
Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | |
| ENG 101 | English I | 3 | ENG 102 | English II | 3 | |
| MTH 101 | Business Mathematics I | 3 | MTH 102 | Business Mathematics II | 3 | |
| ECO 101 | Introductory Microeconomics | 3 | ACC 121 | Financial Accounting I | 3 | |
| SOC 101 | Fundamentals of Sociology | 3 | MGT 111 | Principles of Management | 3 | |
| PSY 101 | General Psychology | 3 | ECO 201 | Introductory Macroeconomics | 3 | |
| 15 | 15 | |||||
| Semester III | Semester IV | |||||
Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | |
| ENG 203 | Business Communication | 3 | FIN 238 | Risk and Insurance Management | 3 | |
| STT 101 | Business Statistics | 3 | FIN 131 | Essentials of Finance | 3 | |
| FIN 132 | Principles of Insurance | 3 | STT 201 | Data Analysis and Modeling | 3 | |
| ACC 122 | Financial Accounting II | 3 | ACC 221 | Basics of Managerial Accounting | 3 | |
| MGT 211 | Fundamentals of Organizational Behavoiur | 3 | RCH 311 | Business Research Methods | 3 | |
| 15 | 15
|
|||||
| Semester V | Semester VI | |||||
Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | |
| MIS 201 | Introduction to Management Information Systems | 3 | MIS 202 | Essentials of e-Business | 3 | |
| FIN 437 | Financial Institutions and Markets | 3 | FIN 231 | Financial Management | 3 | |
| FIN 232 | Management of Commercial Banks | 3 | LAW 292 | Legal Aspects of Banking and Insurance | 3 | |
| MGT 314 | Management of Human Resources | 3 | FIN 331 | Life and Health Insurance | 3 | |
| MKT 241 | Principles of Marketing | 3 | INT 392 | Internship | 3 | |
| PRJ 492 | Project Work | 3 | ||||
| 18 | 15 | |||||
| Semester VII | Semester VIII | |||||
Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | Course Code |
Course Description | Credit Hours | |
| MGT 311 | Fundamentals of Operations Management | 3 | MGT 411 | Business Environment in Nepal | 3 | |
| FIN 333 | Property and Liability Insurance | 3 | MGT 412 | Strategic Management | 3 | |
| FIN 334 | Treasury Management | 3 | FIN 337 | International Banking and Insurance | 3 | |
| FIN 335 | Credit Risk Management | 3 | Elective II | 3 | ||
| Elective I | 3 | |||||
| 15 | 12 | |||||