The October 2017 CII J11 Exam in Review

The J11 exam (wrap and platform services) is the next exam paper to have a look at in our analysis of past papers. Planning to sit the next J11 exam? This will help you.

If you haven’t seen it, you can find it here.

Section A

The exam started well with the first question asking for 8 ways in which a platform could help an adviser when preparing recommendations for an investment portfolio for a new client.  Next up, for another 8 marks, candidates had to state the charges and levies that could be paid by the client within ISA and SIPP wrappers on a platform, and again this seemed like a nice question.

The exam continued with having to identify the main differences between non-advised platform business models compared to advised platform business models and for another 8 marks a question on the main areas of due diligence that an authorised advisory firm would undertake in respect of platform technology factors.

Question 5 asked for the four regulatory permissions and one controlled function for each of them and question 6 asked for an outline of the main employee features a platform could provide as part of a workplace platform offering – for a chunky 10 marks.

Section A totalled 50 marks and seemed like a fair test of understanding of the syllabus.

Section B

Section B is made up of two essay questions for a total of 60 marks.

The first one involved a firm of IFAs currently using a platform and wishing to develop a DFM service using a second platform provider.  The questions were around due diligence on the second platform provider, the main benefits to a high net worth group of clients using the platform and the main risks to that client group of using a DFM service via a platform.  This seemed like to a very fair question for well-prepared students with the 30 marks split equally between the 3 questions.

The second essay-style question was around the re-balancing process, the main factors to consider when re-balancing and the main stages of the transactional services process.  Again we thought this a good question for someone who had studied well.

Comparing to the April 2017 Paper

If we look at the April 2017 exam – found here – we can see that the following topics were tested:

• The main platform features when providing initial investment advice
• The main functions of a custodian
• The main differences in explicit charging compared to implicit charging.
• The main risks to an adviser arising from their use of tools on a platform where a client is taking income
• The main areas that would go into a suitability report
• The main areas of platform functionality that would help a company with auto-enrolment.

With the essay questions the topics were:

• The main factors that an adviser would consider in respect of providing flexible income and withdrawals from investments and pensions
• The benefits and drawbacks to a client of transferring to a platform compared to holding investments directly
• Re-platforming and the main risks of this from a client’s perspective
• The main stages of client money processing

It is worth, with this exam, to look back at some exam papers as themes do emerge, and it is also worth reading the examiner’s comments to see where past students have slipped up.

The annual pass rate in 2017 was 46.94% which had dropped from 51.20% in 2016.  The worst-scoring written J paper in 2016 was J03 at 50.94%, but as you can see, J11 has now taken its place at the bottom of the ladder.

Grab the resources you need!

If you’re studying for your CII J11 exam, and you’re concerned about the outcome, grab our free taster to try out one of Brand Financial Training’s mock exam papers for yourself.  Click the link to download the J11 mock exam taster now!