CAMS-FCI study guide
CAMS-FCI · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
CAMS-FCI is a specialist credential for anti-money laundering professionals who move beyond monitoring and alert review into full financial crime investigations. It is aimed at investigators, compliance analysts, fraud and financial crime teams, and supervisors who own a case from intake through escalation and outcome. The CAMS-FCI study guide has 9 sections and about 3,890 words.
01Investigations Fundamentals
This domain tests whether you can distinguish an alert from a case, frame a defensible investigative question, and run the investigative cycle from intake to conclusion. The exam probes process knowledge, but weighs judgement more heavily: what an investigator may conclude, on what standard, and what must be written down.
423 words, about 2 min02Governance and the Role of the Financial Crime Investigator
This domain tests how the investigation function sits inside the institution: the three lines of defence, independence, escalation and oversight. Questions frequently present a pressure scenario - a relationship manager wants an account kept open - and ask what the investigator does and to whom they report.
420 words, about 2 min03Risk Assessment and Investigation Prioritisation
This domain tests how an enterprise-wide risk assessment cascades into case-level scoring, and how an investigator sequences a queue when resources are finite. Expect scenario questions with several open alerts and a limited number of analysts.
369 words, about 2 min04Alert Triage, Case Intake and Investigation Planning
This domain tests the front end of the process: how a monitoring alert becomes either a documented closure or an investigation with a written plan. Marks are lost on undocumented reasoning far more often than on missing typology knowledge.
373 words, about 2 min05Transaction Analysis and Tracing of Funds
This domain tests whether you can reconstruct a flow of funds, separate source of funds from source of wealth, and articulate a layering narrative that a reader can follow and challenge. Source of funds is the origin of the specific money in the transaction.
399 words, about 2 min06Evidence Collection, Documentation and Case File Management
This domain tests whether the file you leave behind would survive scrutiny by an auditor, a regulator or a court: what was collected, when, from where, and how its integrity was preserved. Evidence categories: documentary (statements, contracts, KYC records), digital (system extracts, emails, blockchain records), testimonial (interview records) and open source.
380 words, about 2 min07Typologies and Red Flags Across Financial Crime Threats
This domain tests recognition of threat-specific patterns and, more importantly, differentiation. Terrorist financing does not look like laundering, sanctions evasion is not the same as high-risk geography, and a single red flag is not a finding.
376 words, about 2 min08Interviewing, Information Sharing and Collaboration with Law Enforcement
This domain tests how to plan and conduct interviews without contaminating evidence, and the lawful boundaries of sharing information internally, with financial intelligence units and with police. Know your interview type: witness, subject or employee.
373 words, about 2 min09Suspicious Activity Reporting, Escalation and Remediation Outcomes
This domain tests the filing decision, narrative quality, handling of continuing activity, and what should happen after a report is filed: restriction, exit decisions and control remediation. File when suspicion is reasonable.
777 words, about 4 min