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CTFA exam

1. Registration
2. Fees
3. Exam dates
4. Outline and knowledge areas
5. Format and length
6. Exam preparation
7. Scoring and reporting
8. Retakes
9. Examination misconduct

Registration

ICB must receive your application to sit for the exam a minimum of 60 days prior to your exam date in order to make appropriate arrangements. Late applications will not be accepted. Applications received less than 60 days prior to a given exam date will be held for the next scheduled individual proctored exam administration. You must meet the specified eligibility requirements to sit for the exam.

Fees

* The Exam Fee, minus a $100 nonrefundable Application Fee, is 100% refundable upon written request prior to the published withdrawal deadline.  A $125 withdrawal fee is assessed if a candidate cancels or withdraws after the published withdrawal deadline from a scheduled exam date for which the candidate is registered. However, requests for withdrawal received on or less than fourteen (14) business days prior to the exam date will not be honored and the entire exam fee will be forfeited. ICB will consider waiving the forfeiture fee in case of a medical emergency. Your request for such a waiver must be made in writing and supported by documentation from a physician, which clearly states that you are unable to appear for the exam due to personal or immediate family medical issues. Requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
** Membership Fee is assessed annually every year after certification has been granted.
***Applies to individuals who hold more than one certification.

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Exam dates

***Individual proctored exam means that the candidate has the option of taking the exam at his/her company with an ICB-certified member serving as exam proctor. Another option is for ICB to locate an exam site that is within 2 hours driving time from the candidate's company.  There will be a $100 fee for all exam site change requests less than 3 weeks prior to the exam date.

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Outline and knowledge areas

The CTFA exam measures the areas of knowledge described in the CTFA exam outline.

The CTFA advisory board has determined that a competent wealth management professional's expertise includes the following five knowledge areas:

Fiduciary & Trust Activities
You must have a thorough understanding of the fundamental tenets of trust law (fiduciary powers, duties, and responsibilities in particular). You must be familiar with various types of fiduciary relationships and activities that are essential to day-to-day account administration. Finally, you must also have knowledge of a trustee's responsibilities relative to investing trust assets (i.e. the prudent person and prudent investor rule), specific securities laws, OCC Regulation 9 and relevant ethical issues.

Financial Planning
You must understand the entire spectrum of non-legal aspects of personal finance including recommendation and implementation of basic personal financial strategies related to wealth accumulation and distribution, tax planning, asset transfers and retirement planning. Due to its impact on a client's personal financial plan, you need to be able to assess a client's insurance program including life, property, disability, casualty and health insurance. Last, you must understand estate planning techniques including the disposition of assets during a client's lifetime through a planned gift program as well as after death through a testamentary disposition.

Tax Law & Planning
You must possess knowledge of Internal Revenue Code requirements related to taxation of trusts, personal income and employee benefits. In addition, you need to understand individual and charitable trust taxes, the scope and requirements of gift taxes, estate taxes and generation skipping transfer taxes - among others. You must be able to advise clients on the federal tax consequences of various financial strategies including the acquisition and disposition of property.

Investment Management
You must have knowledge of economics and markets; especially, as they apply to the effect that major economic variables have on investment decisions. Furthermore, you must be skilled in client portfolio management including various types of investments (including securities instruments), client objectives and constraints, and performance measurement.

Ethics
You must be familiar with ethics as it relates to unauthorized practice of law, confidentiality, breach of trust, self-dealing, issues dealing with unfair trading of securities, conflict of interest, prudent person standard, etc.

Format and length

The CTFA exam consists of 200 multiple-choice questions. You will be given four hours in which to complete the exam. Everything that you will need to complete the exam is provided by ICB. Assistance from calculators and other equipment is not allowed.

Click here to see sample questions from the CTFA certification examination.

Question parameters

An exam development team continuously creates new questions for consideration. The appropriate advisory board members review each question for relevance, content and difficulty.

ICB employs psychometricians to ensure that each question is complete, fair and measures only the required knowledge areas. In addition, the psychometricians along with the advisory board members ensure the exam's validity. A question is not considered for inclusion until one, right, clear answer has been identified, all cultural, geographical or organizational biases have been removed and details related to minutiae have been eliminated.

Some questions contain graphics or case studies, which you must review and resolve. Several questions may be based on a single piece of information. Some questions may contain a superlative (i.e. MOST), a pejorative (i.e. LEAST), or a negative (i.e. NOT) to recreate some types of decisions that you may confront.

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Exam preparation

Study resources

While ICB recommends these resources for appropriate examination preparation, ICB does not guarantee that you will pass the exam by studying these materials alone. The CTFA exam assesses not only your knowledge of the topics on the exam outline, but also your application of that knowledge. You should refer frequently to the ICB CTFA examination outline when preparing for the exam.

• ABA Online Review Course for the CTFA Exam, American Bankers Association (ABA)
• ABA Wealth Advisory and Personal Trust Series, ABA
• ABA Trust Letter newsletter, ABA
• Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, Frank Reilly and Keith Brown, Thomson South-Western (www.swlearning.com)
• Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits, Natalie Choate, Ataxplan Publications, (www.ataxplan.com)
• Modern Investment Management and Prudent Man Rule, Bevis Longstreth, Oxford University Press (www.oup.com)
• Personal Financial Planning, G. Victor Hallman and Jerry S. Rosenbloom, McGraw-Hill (www.amazon.com)
• The Pension Answer Book, Stephen J. Krass, Aspen Publishers (www.amazon.com)
• Web Resources: National Committee on Planned Giving, (www.ncpg.org); Planned Giving Design Center, (www.pgdc.com)

Alternative training options

1. You can read your organization's trust procedures and operations manuals and any available regulatory agency handbooks or supervisory guidelines.
2. It may be helpful to speak with your peers and supervisor to learn of any information tools available.  

IMPORTANT NOTICE: ICB has received several reports that unaffiliated third party vendors have been offering the sale of CTFA exam preparation materials and questions. While we understand that it can be difficult to determine the legitimacy of offers from these vendors, please be aware that ICB does not authorize, endorse, sponsor, or are affiliated with any third party vendors selling materials associated with the CTFA Exam. All authorized materials are available on www.aba.com or at 1-800-BANKERS only. Please contact ABA Customer Service at 1-800-BANKERS or visit http://www.aba.com/Training/ICB/Pages/CTFA_Exam.aspx#prep  to be directed to the official source for your specific Certification Exam materials.

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Exam scoring and reporting

Scores are processed and communicated in writing within four to six weeks of the exam date. All scores are kept confidential and only you will be informed of your score. You must sign an Examination Score Release Form to authorize a third party to receive your score results.

All ICB exams are electronically scored using advanced methods of statistical analysis. Scores are recorded based on a "Pass/Fail" system. The advisory boards determine the exam's pass/fail standard using a criterion-referenced methodology, which defines the performance standard and degree of difficulty for each item. Your score is based on your personal performance measured against these standards, not based on a composite "grade curve" for a group or date.

All questions for an exam are scored three times: once by scanner and twice by computer. During the scoring process, a variety of electronic and manual quality controls are conducted to ensure accuracy.

Upon receiving your score, you may appeal it if you feel an error has been made by requesting a hand scoring within 30 days of the postmark date on your score report. A $75 fee is assessed for hand scoring. To request a hand scoring, please address your written request to: ICB, 1120 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036, Attn: Exam Manager. Requests for hand scoring must include: your name, examination date, the fee and an explanation as to why you are requesting that a hand scoring be performed. A response to your request will be sent to you within 14 business days upon receipt of your request. Requests submitted without the fee will be returned. Requests received more than 30 days after the postmark date of your exam score report will be returned. Should a discrepancy between the results of the hand scoring and the computer scoring be revealed, the hand scoring results will prevail.

Exam retakes

Your exam performance in each of the knowledge areas will be provided in your exam score report. This information will assist you in identifying those areas in which to place emphasis during preparation, if you elect to retake the exam.

There is no limit to the number of times you can take the exam. However, all exam retakes must occur on an individual proctored examination date only.  You must wait at least 60 days before you are allowed to retake an exam.  You must pass the exam within a three (3) year period from the date of your first exam attempt. The appropriate fee must be submitted, along with the exam retake form, for each retake 60 days prior to the scheduled date of the retake exam.

Examination misconduct

All persons taking one of ICB's examinations are expected to abide by all rules and regulations governing the examination before, during and after the examination. Possession of copies of any current or previous examination given by ICB is not authorized and is a violation of ICB's rules governing certification exams. Persons taking ICB certification examinations are not permitted to take notes about the examination. Any person to have violated any of the rules governing ICB certification exams, or to haveconducted themselves in a dishonest or unethical manner with respect to the taking of an ICB certification exam is subject to sanctions determined to be appropriate by ICB, in its sole discretion, including, but not limited to: denial of certification; denial of the right to take any or all ICB examinations. Answer sheets determined, before grading, to have been completed by a person who has violated ICB examination rules will not be graded. ICB reserves the right to pursue any and all remedies available to it, including legal remedies, with respect to any violation of its examination rules against anyone who violated ICB's examination rules or aided another in violating these rules.

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