The CISI Capital Markets Programme syllabus: every element and its weighting
Every syllabus element on all three CISI Capital Markets Programme papers, with the exact number of questions each one carries and what it tests. Use it to weight your revision to the marks instead of spreading it evenly.
What is on the CISI Capital Markets Programme syllabus?
The Capital Markets Programme has three syllabuses and you sit two of them. UK Financial Regulation is 75 questions across four elements, with Conduct of Business and Client Assets worth 35 on its own. Securities is 100 questions across nine elements, led by Asset Classes at 27. Derivatives is 100 questions across nine elements, led by Introduction to Derivatives at 17. All three are computer based, multiple choice and pass at 70%.
Key exam facts
- Exams you sit
- 2 of 3: UK Financial Regulation plus one technical unit
- UK Financial Regulation
- 75 questions, 90 minutes, 4 elements
- Securities
- 100 questions, 120 minutes, 9 elements
- Derivatives
- 100 questions, 120 minutes, 9 elements
- Largest element
- Conduct of Business & Client Assets, 35 of 75
- Smallest element
- Markets, on Securities, 2 of 100
- Pass mark
- 70% on all three, no negative marking
- Prerequisites
- IntegrityMatters in the UK, plus a CISI workbook per unit
A feel for CMP: Securities
Pick an answer and read the explanation. No account needed.
Which service does a high street bank NOT provide to its personal customers?
One question shows the format. It does not measure your readiness.
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What is the accrued interest per £100 nominal on a UK gilt paying a 5% coupon semi-annually (2.5% per period), given that the last coupon was paid 120 days ago and the coupon period is 182 days?
Why does an active secondary market reduce an issuer's cost of new capital?
The founders of a listed company sell part of their own holdings through a marketed offer. No new shares are created. The offer is BEST described as:
The three Capital Markets Programme papers are weighted so unevenly that giving every element equal time is the most reliable way to fail one. This page lists every element on all three papers with its exact question count, what it tests, and where the marks pile up. Each table sums to its paper total, with the sum written underneath so you can check it.
First, the structure: two exams, not three
Get this right before you buy anything. You complete the Programme with two exams, not three. UK Financial Regulation is the regulatory unit and everyone sits it. You then sit one technical unit, Securities or Derivatives, normally decided by your desk rather than by you. You do not need both. The wider picture, including how to choose, is in the Capital Markets Programme guide.
| Paper | Questions | Time | Pass mark | Syllabus elements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK Financial Regulation | 75 | 90 min | 70% | 4 |
| Securities | 100 | 120 min | 70% | 9 |
| Derivatives | 100 | 120 min | 70% | 9 |
All three are computer based, multiple choice and marked at 70%, with no negative marking. Act on that last point: a blank answer is a question thrown away, so guess anything you cannot work out.
Two bits of arithmetic worth keeping in your head. Seventy per cent of 75 is 52.5, so on UK Financial Regulation you need 53 right and can drop 22. On either 100-question paper you need 70 and can drop 30. Whichever route you take, the Programme is 175 questions across 210 minutes.
UK Financial Regulation syllabus: 75 questions, four elements
| # | Element | Questions | Share of paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Regulatory Environment | 12 | 16% |
| 2 | Conduct of Business & Client Assets | 35 | 47% |
| 3 | Enhancing Market Integrity | 19 | 25% |
| 4 | Complaints & Redress | 9 | 12% |
Sum check: 12 + 35 + 19 + 9 = 75
Element 1, The Regulatory Environment (12)
The shape of UK regulation: the twin-peaks model, the FCA and the PRA and how their remits differ, the FCA's statutory objectives, the Financial Services and Markets Act, the threshold conditions, and the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. Expect questions turning on which body does what.
Element 2, Conduct of Business and Client Assets (35)
The heart of the paper. The FCA's Principles for Businesses, client categorisation, communicating with clients and financial promotions, suitability and appropriateness, conflicts of interest, inducements, and the client money and custody rules under CASS. Precise, detailed, heavily tested, and written to catch anyone who learned the gist rather than the specific obligation.
Element 3, Enhancing Market Integrity (19)
Market abuse and the rules against it, insider dealing, money laundering and the stages it moves through, the proceeds of crime and the reporting obligations, bribery and financial crime.
Element 4, Complaints and Redress (9)
How complaints must be handled, the Financial Ombudsman Service, and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme: who is covered, in what circumstances, and the broad shape of the limits. Fewer marks, but the rules are clean and learnable, which makes them cheap ones.
The skew
Element 2 is 35 of 75 on its own, nearly half the paper, and almost as many marks as the other three combined (12 + 19 + 9 = 40). Add element 3 and two elements are 54 of 75, roughly 72 per cent of the exam. Split your revision evenly across the four and you hand a quarter of your time to an element worth 9 marks and the same quarter to one worth 35. That is the most useful fact about this paper and the one most candidates ignore. Full treatment in the UK Financial Regulation guide.
Securities syllabus: 100 questions, nine elements
| # | Element | Questions | Share of paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Financial Services Industry | 3 | 3% |
| 2 | Asset Classes | 27 | 27% |
| 3 | Markets | 2 | 2% |
| 4 | Primary Markets | 14 | 14% |
| 5 | Secondary Markets | 15 | 15% |
| 6 | Corporate Actions | 7 | 7% |
| 7 | Clearing & Settlement | 8 | 8% |
| 8 | Accounting Analysis | 14 | 14% |
| 9 | Investment Management | 10 | 10% |
Sum check: 3 + 27 + 2 + 14 + 15 + 7 + 8 + 14 + 10 = 100
Element 1, The Financial Services Industry (3)
Three marks. Read it once so nothing is unfamiliar, then leave it alone.
Element 2, Asset Classes (27)
The biggest single block on the paper. Equities and the rights attaching to shares, the full range of bonds with their features and yields, money market instruments, and the characteristics that separate one asset class from another. Much of it is recall, some of it calculates.
Element 3, Markets (2)
Two questions. Keep your time on it proportionate.
Element 4, Primary Markets (14)
How securities are issued, listing, and routes to market.
Element 5, Secondary Markets (15)
How securities then trade: order-driven versus quote-driven, on-exchange versus over-the-counter, the role of the central counterparty. Elements 4 and 5 are 29 marks between them, nearly a third of the paper.
Element 6, Corporate Actions (7), and element 7, Clearing and Settlement (8)
Fifteen marks between them. Worth a careful pass through the material, not a week of it.
Element 8, Accounting Analysis (14)
Where rusty maths shows up. Reading a set of accounts and computing the ratios: profitability, liquidity, gearing, investor ratios. You have to recognise which ratio the question wants and apply it without hesitating, which only comes from drilling.
Element 9, Investment Management (10)
Portfolio construction, the styles and approaches, and performance measurement.
The skew
This is the most lopsided of the three syllabuses. Asset Classes is 27 marks; Markets is 1. Elements 2, 4, 5 and 8 together are 70 of the 100, so four of the nine carry the entire pass mark on their own. At the other end, elements 1 and 3 combined are worth 5 marks, and the four smallest elements (3 + 2 + 7 + 8 = 20) are worth less than Asset Classes by itself. Revise in that order. The calculation content, bond yields and the flat yield against the redemption yield, dividend yield and the investor ratios, and accounting ratios such as gearing, current ratio, return on capital and earnings per share, is covered in the Securities exam guide.
Derivatives syllabus: 100 questions, nine elements
| # | Element | Questions | Share of paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to Derivatives | 17 | 17% |
| 2 | Underlying Markets | 16 | 16% |
| 3 | Market Structure | 9 | 9% |
| 4 | Principles of Pricing & Valuation | 11 | 11% |
| 5 | OTC Derivatives | 7 | 7% |
| 6 | Principles of Clearing & Margin | 14 | 14% |
| 7 | Delivery & Settlement | 6 | 6% |
| 8 | Trading, Hedging & Investment Strategies | 14 | 14% |
| 9 | Regulatory Requirements | 6 | 6% |
Sum check: 17 + 16 + 9 + 11 + 7 + 14 + 6 + 14 + 6 = 100
Element 1, Introduction to Derivatives (17)
What futures, options and swaps are and what they are used for: hedging, speculation, arbitrage. This is also where the terminology lives, and the terminology is the whole game on this paper.
Element 2, Underlying Markets (16)
The markets the contracts reference, from equities and bonds through to commodities and currencies. Elements 1 and 2 are 33 marks between them, a third of the paper.
Element 4, Principles of Pricing and Valuation (11)
The fair value of a future, what drives an option premium, intrinsic value and time value. Some of this calculates, so practise it rather than reading it.
Element 6, Principles of Clearing and Margin (14)
The role of the central counterparty, why it removes counterparty risk, and how margin works: initial margin, variation margin, the daily mark-to-market process. Conceptually the part that most rewards careful study.
Element 8, Trading, Hedging and Investment Strategies (14)
Putting the instruments to work: the basic strategies, how a hedge offsets risk, the payoff of a position. Expect scenario questions that ask what a position achieves.
The four lighter elements: Market Structure (9), OTC Derivatives (7), Delivery and Settlement (6) and Regulatory Requirements (6). Twenty-eight marks between them. Small on their own, not negligible together, so read them properly but do not give them your best evenings.
The skew
Derivatives is the flattest of the three, which changes the tactics. No element is worth more than 17 or fewer than 6, so there is no single monster and no throwaway. The top five, elements 1, 2, 6, 8 and 4, are 72 of the 100 marks; the other four are 28 between them. You cannot ignore the tail the way you can deprioritise the Markets element on Securities, but you can still halve your time on it. This is also the paper where candidates most often mistake recognising a term for knowing it: pairs like long and short, holder and writer, call and put, covered and naked decide a real share of the marks. The Derivatives exam guide goes through them.
What the weightings tell you to do
Line the three papers up and a pattern falls out. UK Financial Regulation is one heavy element and three light ones. Securities is four heavy elements and five that barely register. Derivatives is broad but tilted, with five elements doing most of the work. None of them rewards an even revision plan, and an even plan is exactly what a workbook read cover to cover produces, because chapters look about the same length whatever they are worth.
So invert it. Work out the marks per element before you open anything, then allocate hours in proportion to marks rather than page count. On UK Financial Regulation that means the bulk of your time on conduct of business, client assets and market integrity. On Securities, asset classes, the two markets elements and accounting analysis, 70 marks between them. On Derivatives, the top five and the vocabulary underneath them.
Weightings also tell you where a weakness is affordable. Being shaky on Complaints and Redress costs you at most 9 marks on a paper where you can drop 22. Being shaky on Conduct of Business can cost you 35 on the same paper. Those two gaps feel identical while you are revising and are nothing alike when you sit down.
What the syllabus does not tell you
Weightings tell you where the marks are, not how the questions are written, which is the other half of the job. All three papers test application rather than recognition, with carefully written distractors. The standard failure pattern is a candidate who read the workbook, felt familiar with the material, and never tested themselves against the clock. Familiarity is not recall.
Two paper-specific warnings. On UK Financial Regulation, stale material is dangerous: UK regulation moves, and confidently learning a rule that has since changed is worse than not knowing it. On Securities and Derivatives, 100 questions in 120 minutes is a stamina test as much as a knowledge test. Full, timed mocks weighted like the real paper are the only honest rehearsal for either problem. If you are hunting official past papers, read what actually exists first.
Before you can sit any of it
Two pieces of admin that catch people out. In the UK you must pass IntegrityMatters, CISI's short online integrity test, before sitting the Capital Markets Programme exams. Not difficult, but compulsory, so book it in your first week rather than the day you try to book the exam. And a CISI workbook must be purchased when you book each unit, so budget for it alongside the exam fee.
How to use this page
Bookmark the table for your paper and put the question counts at the top of your study plan. If you are giving equal evenings to a 35-mark element and a 9-mark element, or to a 27-mark element and a 2-mark element, the plan is wrong and the weightings just told you so. Use repeated full, timed mock results alongside your timetable, confidence and remaining weak areas when deciding whether to book; no mock score can predict an individual result. If you would rather practise against the weightings than police them, PasskeyPrep's questions and mocks are built to the numbers on this page; it is an independent study tool, not affiliated with CISI.
Frequently asked questions
How many syllabus elements are there on the Capital Markets Programme?
Twenty-two across the three papers: 4 on UK Financial Regulation, 9 on Securities and 9 on Derivatives. You only sit two papers, so your own syllabus is 13 elements, either 4 plus 9 for the Securities route or 4 plus 9 for the Derivatives route.
Which CMP syllabus element carries the most questions?
Conduct of Business and Client Assets on UK Financial Regulation, at 35 of 75 questions, nearly half that paper. On Securities the largest is Asset Classes at 27 of 100. On Derivatives it is Introduction to Derivatives at 17 of 100.
How many questions do I need to get right to pass?
All three papers pass at 70%. On UK Financial Regulation that is 70% of 75, which is 52.5, so you need 53 right and can drop 22. On Securities and Derivatives you need 70 of 100 and can drop 30. There is no negative marking, so never leave a question blank.
Do I need to study both the Securities and the Derivatives syllabus?
No. The Programme is completed with two exams: UK Financial Regulation plus one technical unit, either Securities or Derivatives. Your firm or your desk usually decides which, so check before you buy a workbook.
What do I need in place before I can sit a CMP exam?
In the UK you must pass IntegrityMatters, CISI's short online integrity test, before sitting the Capital Markets Programme exams. A CISI workbook must also be purchased when you book each unit, so budget for it alongside the exam fee.