FINRA Restructures Representative-Level Qualification Exams

Written by: Brian YoungBeginning on October 1, 2018, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) restructured certain representative-level qualification exams by creating the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE or Essentials) exam and revising appropriate representative-level qualification exams. This change is meant to reduce the duplication across various exams regarding general industry knowledge and was created to allow persons not associated with a firm to show that they have general industry knowledge as they seek jobs in the industry.

Persons seeking their Series 65 license to act as investment advisors (IARs) do not need to take the SIE Exam.

Key facts about the SIE exam include:

The SIE Exam is open to anyone 18 years old or older and the individual does not have to be associated with a firm;

The exam is good for four years and, beginning October 1, 2018, is to be used in conjunction with other representative exams;

If you already hold representative-level exams (i.e., Series 6, 7, 22, 57, etc.) you will be granted credit for the SIE Exam;

The SIE Exam can be passed once and used in conjunction with taking other affected exams; and

The table below outlines the affected exam categories:

To review FINRA's published Q&A on the SIE exam, please see: Click HereRelated: The SEC Launches Action Lookup Website