CAMS study guide
CAMS · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
CAMS - the Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist credential - is a professional certification for people whose work touches financial crime compliance: AML analysts and investigators, compliance and risk officers, internal auditors, consultants, and staff in banking, payments, fintech, insurance and securities. Regulators, law enforcement personnel and lawyers also take it to gain a working vocabulary for how institutions detect, escalate and report suspicious activity. The CAMS study guide has 4 sections and about 1,298 words.
01Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risks
The three classic stages - placement, layering, integration - describe a cash-based laundering model, not a universal law. Wire fraud proceeds never touch cash and may skip placement entirely; some schemes never reach integration.
333 words, about 2 min02Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Compliance Program
A defensible program rests on the pillars most exam candidates learn as five: internal policies, procedures and controls; customer due diligence; a designated compliance officer; ongoing training; and independent testing. Underneath sit the elements examiners actually probe - a documented enterprise-wide risk assessment that drives everything else, board and senior management oversight with real authority and budget, and a risk-based allocation of resources.
327 words, about 2 min03Conducting and Supporting the Investigation Process
Investigations begin from many sources: automated monitoring alerts, sanctions and watchlist hits, branch or employee referrals, negative media, law enforcement enquiries, and internal audit findings. The workflow is consistent - triage and prioritisation, information gathering, analysis, escalation, decision, documentation, and closure or reporting.
325 words, about 2 min04Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Compliance Standards and Regulatory Expectations
The FATF's Recommendations are the international benchmark - they are not self-executing law; jurisdictions implement them, and mutual evaluations plus the International Co-operation Review Group assess how well. Other standard setters shape expectations: the Basel Committee on correspondent banking and customer due diligence, the Wolfsberg Group on private banking and screening guidance, and the Egmont Group on financial intelligence unit cooperation.
313 words, about 2 min