CGSC

It suits compliance, risk and financial crime prevention professionals who deal with sanctions exposure, as well as those moving into sanctions-specific roles. ICA lists Managing Sanctions Risk among its subject areas, so expect a practitioner focus rather than an academic one. Confirm eligibility and any recommended experience with ICA directly.

The syllabus is split into two equally weighted domains: Managing Sanctions Risk (50 per cent) and Sanctions Compliance Programme Elements (50 per cent). In practice that means both the risk side - identifying, assessing and mitigating sanctions exposure - and the programme side, covering the policies, controls and governance that support them.

We do not publish these figures because they are not confirmed in our current source material. ICA's own qualification page and assessment guidance are the authoritative places to check duration, question count, format and pass mark before you book. Treat any figure you see elsewhere as unverified until ICA confirms it.

Fees and validity periods are set by ICA and change over time, so we do not state them here. Check the ICA qualifications pages or contact ICA directly for the current fee, any membership-linked pricing, and whether the award carries a validity or refresher requirement.

Retake policy is set by ICA and is not confirmed in our source material. Before booking, ask ICA about the number of attempts allowed, any waiting period between attempts, and the fee for a resit. Building that into your study plan is safer than assuming a free or immediate retake.

Both domains carry equal weight, so you cannot afford to neglect either. Candidates with day-to-day sanctions exposure tend to find the risk domain more intuitive and the programme domain more demanding, because it requires precise knowledge of control design and governance. Weakness in one half is the most common way to fall short.

Start with Managing Sanctions Risk to build the conceptual foundation - what sanctions are, how exposure arises and how it is assessed - then move to Sanctions Compliance Programme Elements, which assumes that grounding. Finish with practice questions across both domains so your revision reflects the 50/50 weighting rather than your personal preference.

Three recur: over-studying one domain because it feels comfortable, memorising definitions without being able to apply them to a scenario, and leaving programme elements such as screening, escalation and governance until too late. Practise explaining controls in plain language and linking each one back to the risk it addresses.

Combine ICA's own study materials and assessment guidance with practical examples from your own organisation's sanctions controls. Work through scenario-based questions rather than pure recall, since professional qualifications of this type test application. Confirm the current syllabus and any recommended reading with ICA before finalising your study plan.