BTEC Business: Money, Ways to Pay and Current Accounts

This material trains the opening section of Unit 3, Personal and Business Finance, in the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Business qualifications: understanding the importance of managing personal finance (content areas A1 to A3). Personal finance forms Section A of the Unit 3 examination, worth about a third of the marks, and questions often ask you to match a payment method or an account to a person's situation and justify the choice.

It begins with money itself: its functions as a unit of account, a means of exchange, a store of value and legal tender, and the influences on how people use it, including attitudes to risk, life stages, interest rates (the cost of borrowing against the reward of saving) and inflation, which weakens money as a store of value.

The largest part deals with the ways to pay listed in the specification. You practise telling a standing order from a direct debit, deciding when BACS, Faster Payments or CHAPS is the right system (payroll, a quick transfer, a same-day house purchase), and distinguishing debit, credit, charge, store and pre-paid cards, with the advantages and disadvantages of each. Current accounts come next: standard, packaged or premium, basic and student accounts, what each offers and who it suits, including a calculation of whether a packaged account's monthly fee is worth the benefits it bundles.

The formats complement one another. The quiz has twelve scenario questions, each with an explanation of why the other options are wrong. The flashcards hold the definitions and features to learn. The written work has eight longer tasks marked against key points, such as explaining the functions of money with examples, describing financial needs at different life stages, comparing standing orders with direct debits, choosing between BACS, Faster Payments and CHAPS, discussing credit cards against cash and judging a packaged account. The exam is a conversation with an examiner who describes a person or a small business, asks how they should pay or bank and why, and gives brief feedback at the end.

The people, businesses and figures are invented; product features are described in general terms, because fees, limits and offers differ between banks and change over time. All questions are original practice material, not taken from Pearson papers.

• Explain the functions of money and how life stages, attitudes to risk, interest rates and inflation affect its role
• Choose between standing orders, direct debits, BACS, Faster Payments and CHAPS for a given payment
• Compare debit, credit, charge, store and pre-paid cards, cash and mobile payments
• Describe standard, packaged, basic and student current accounts and match them to customers
• Calculate whether a packaged account is worth its fee

Practice material written by Zestly, based on Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Business (2016 suite), Unit 3 Personal and Business Finance, A1 Functions and role of money, A2 Different ways to pay and A3 Current accounts (specification Issue 15, April 2023).