Faculty of Business and Law
University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia
www.uow.edu.au UOW CRICOS: 00102E
FIN 241 Group Assignment
This manual outlines the following:
1. Questions
2. Task requirements
3. Format requirements
4. Submission requirements
1. Questions
This assignment consists of two parts. Part I directs you to work with real data to construct a
balance of payments of Australia for your given data period (as announced, each group will be
allocated to a data period). Part II requires you to write a report based on your analysis and
interpretations of outputs obtained from Part I.
 Part I (40 marks)
- Visit https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/international-trade/balance-payments-and-
international-investment-position-australia/latest-release
- Click on Data Download button on the top right corner. There are 6 tables and please download
Table 1 - Balance of payments, summary: original – quarter.
- The first sheet titled “Index” will be helpful to navigate each item under each account in the BOP.
- You should use the data on the second sheet named “Data1” to construct the BOP.
- Check the data period allocated for your group (I will upload the excel spreadsheet on the Moodle
site).
- Construct the balance of payment for Australia for the specific quarter of the year allocated to
your group.
- Present the credit, debit and net value for each item under each account as shown in the sample
BOP provided in the slide 31 in your Week 7 lecture notes.
Note: The data from Table 1 - the data figures from “Data1” on the Excel file you have downloaded
can be different from those in the tables presented on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
website as these data have been seasonally adjusted. Therefore, you should only refer to and interpret
the data that you have downloaded and extracted from Table 1, “Data1” sheet on the Excel file.
 Part II (60 marks)
You need to write a report based on your analysis and interpretations of outputs obtained from Part I.
Your analysis and interpretation should include the followings, but not limited to:
- Interpret the credit and debit transactions and its net value of each item (for example, how can
you interpret -$1,700 on reserve assets debit transaction? What does $16,250 on the net value
of primary income indicate?)
Faculty of Business and Law
University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia
www.uow.edu.au UOW CRICOS: 00102E
- Indicate the status of surplus or deficit for each item under each account in BOP, and find out
what leads to such surplus or deficit for the account by doing some research with the below
mentioned reference materials.
- Find out and provide the exchange rates of USD/AUD (AUD is the base currency) for that
quarter of the year (your data period), the previous quarter, and the following quarter, and read
the trend of the value of Australian dollars against the USD. Using the information extracted
from BOP, determine the Australia’s financial and economic health for the quarter of the
study, and make inferences on the economic ramification and its impact on the exchange rate.
- For your analysis, you should refer to our main textbook, government and company websites
and other financial newspapers, and do some background research wherever required. Provide
your reasoning with supporting argument/evidence as to why Australia has resulted in such
figures of certain items. You must provide in-text citation and the list of references at the end
of your report.
2. Task requirements
a. The report MUST be completed as group work of two students to produce one report.
Individual submission is NOT allowed and results in 0 mark.
b. To provide analysis and interpretation, you should build up your own arguments from reading
textbooks, government and company websites, and relevant financial presses.
c. Referencing and in-text citation must follow an acceptable academic format using the
Harvard referencing style. Please refer to the “Harvard Referencing Guide” available under
the Assignment folder on our Moodle site. All sourced material, including direct quotations,
must be appropriately acknowledged.
d. Use your own words. Reference wherever necessary. Do NOT plagiarise. If your similarity
percentage is more than 30%, please revise your report until it goes below 30%.
e. Each group makes ONE soft‐copy TURNITIN submission only.
3. Format requirements
Part I
• You must follow the template (sample BOP) provided by Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA),
which I have shown you in the Slide 31 in Week 7 lecture notes. Your output should include all
items presented in the sample BOP. Please note that we do not follow the U.S. BOP but the
Australian BOP. There will be a penalty if you do not follow the structure and template
according to the RBA website.
Faculty of Business and Law
University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia
www.uow.edu.au UOW CRICOS: 00102E
Part II
• The suggested word limit of Part II is 600 - 800 words (including the list of reference).
• Part II should follow the structure including (1) Overall interpretation of the balance of
payments (2) Conclusion and (3) Reference List.
• You must produce a “title page” with your group information (Data period (Year, Quarter),
group members’ student number, student name, and each member’s contribution weight in
percentage, for example, if A and B both made equal contribution, then A: 100% and B:100%.
You can also allocate A:100% and B: 80%, which indicates that if your total mark for the
assignment is 72 marks, then A gets 72 marks and B gets 58 marks (80% of the total marks).
• The report must be typed with the following requirements.
 Font style: Times New Roman
 Font size: 12
 Margin: Normal
 Spacing: 1.5
 Numbered pages
4. Submission requirements
a. The report is due on Wednesday, 17th May 2023 by 3:00 pm (Week 11).
b. Do not wait until the last minute to submit your work. Server problems, network outages,
computer breakdowns, hard disc failures, and the like will not be considered for late
submissions.
c. Each group must submit only ONE MS Word file containing all written work (including
reference list) into the TURNITIN system on the Moodle site. So only ONE member must be
in charge of submission. If both members attempted to or practice to submit the word file into
the TURNITIN system, then you will get a 100% similarity report, which will result in a big
trouble and penalty for your mark. In-text citation, as well as a reference list, must be
included in your submission. Failure to submit a soft copy of the word file into TURNITIN
will result in a zero mark.
d. Penalty rate for late submissions is 5% of the total marks for every 24‐hour period after the
submission due date/time.
e. Late submission is not permitted more than a week after the original due date.
f. You are NOT allowed to collaborate with anyone other than your group members on this
assignment.
g. If you fail to meet format/submission requirements, you will be penalised.