QFA Investment study guide
QFA Investment · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
QFA Certificate in Professional Financial Advice is one of the professional qualifications offered by LIA, an educational and professional association for individuals working in the financial services industry in Ireland. It sits in LIA's professional qualification suite, which spans Level 7 to Level 9 on the National Framework of Qualifications, and LIA delivers its courses in partnership with Atlantic Technological University Sligo. The qualification is aimed at advisers, planners and support staff who need a structured, technical grounding in investment advice rather than a specialist research or trading skill set. The programme is built from six modules, and the syllabus areas assessed are investment products and savings vehicles; asset classes, markets and the economic environment; portfolio construction, risk and return; and the regulation, taxation and client suitability rules that frame advice. The QFA Investment study guide has 4 sections and about 1,352 words.
01Investment Products and Savings Vehicles
Every product sits on a spectrum from capital-certain savings to market-linked investment. On the savings side: demand deposits, notice accounts, term deposits and State Savings products.
357 words, about 2 min02Asset Classes, Markets and the Economic Environment
Cash offers certainty and liquidity but loses purchasing power to inflation. Fixed income delivers coupon plus capital gain or loss, driven by credit risk and interest-rate risk.
331 words, about 2 min03Portfolio Construction, Risk and Return
Expected portfolio return is the weighted average of asset expected returns. Risk is usually measured by standard deviation of returns, split into systematic risk (market-wide, captured by beta) and unsystematic risk (company-specific, removable by diversification).
337 words, about 2 min04Regulation, Taxation and Client Suitability
Firms and individuals must be authorised by the relevant regulator (in Ireland, the Central Bank of Ireland) and comply with fitness and probity standards. Conduct rules - MiFID II for investment firms, the Insurance Distribution Directive for insurance-based products, and the Consumer Protection Code - require know-your-client, suitability assessment, fair treatment, transparent cost disclosure, management of conflicts of interest, best execution and record-keeping.
327 words, about 2 min