Series 14 guide for the FINRA Compliance Officer Exam, covering supervision, operations, sales practice, registration, banking, and regulatory controls.
Use this Series 14 exam guide when you are preparing for the Compliance Officer Exam. This is not a representative-level product exam. It is a compliance-oriented qualification that expects broader regulatory judgment across areas such as supervision, firm controls, and the relationship between business activity and compliance obligations.
The guide combines full chapter-based lessons with quick-reference pages such as the Cheat Sheet and FAQ. The educational chapter sequence follows the official FINRA exam functions, with chapters on regulatory agencies, markets and operations, broker-dealer operations, capital and credit, general supervision, investment banking, registration, customer and employee accounts, and solicitations. That structure is deliberate. Series 14 is written as a broad compliance role, so the guide should be learned the same way.
Use the chapter pages when you need fuller lesson coverage and cleaner compliance reasoning. Use the cheat sheet when the framework is already familiar and you want a faster retention pass.
Series 14 exam snapshot
Fact
Current FINRA summary
Registration context
Compliance Officer Qualification Exam
Exam focus
Firm compliance processes, reporting requirements, supervision, operations, and regulatory controls
Scored items
110
Time limit
3 hours
Passing score
70
Corequisites
None
What to study first
Start with markets and operations plus general supervision. Those are the two largest Series 14 functions and they establish the control framework for the rest of the exam. A strong answer usually identifies the business-line risk, applies the firm’s written procedures, preserves evidence, escalates to the right control owner, and documents the remediation or reporting step.
Series 14 study sections
Use this route when you want the exact Series 14 section path instead of the broad chapter view. The exam is wide, but the same compliance pattern repeats: identify the risk, apply the WSP, escalate to the right owner, remediate, and preserve the evidence.
Study Series 14 market-operations framework topics, including listed and OTC market structure, agency and principal capacity, market makers, risk-based surveillance, new trading venues, alert prioritization, evidence standards, and escalation paths.
Study Series 14 sales-practice controls, including fair conduct, fair pricing, IPO allocation restrictions, front-running, research-related trading, best execution evidence, trading ahead, and corrective action.
Study Series 14 trading-practice controls, including confirmations, short-sale delivery and close-outs, trade reporting, clearly erroneous trades, order handling, capacity coding, reconciliations, and trade-error controls.
Study Series 14 surveillance program design and governance, including manipulation and insider-trading objectives, OTC reporting data, floor-trading and penny-stock controls, alert triage, case closure evidence, regulatory request files, model governance, trend metrics, and U.S. Treasury auction monitoring.
Study Series 14 reporting requirements, including short-interest reporting, beneficial ownership, Section 16(a), ownership and control data, reporting calendars, amended filings, reconciliations, and supervisory review evidence.
Study Series 14 program-trading oversight, including program trading definition, market-wide halt concepts, DMM-facilitated closing auctions, volatile-market escalation, basket strategy risk limits, and post-event reviews.
Study Series 14 general supervisory program controls, including WSP architecture, delegation, Rule 3110, Rule 3130 certifications, payments to unregistered persons, carrying agreement oversight, BCP, Rule 4530, statutory disqualification, municipal-business controls, and corrective action plans.
Study Series 14 soft-dollar arrangement controls, including Section 28(e) safe harbor concepts, eligible research and brokerage services, non-eligible benefits, best execution conflicts, approval governance, allocation documentation, disclosures, and remediation.
Review Series 14 public communication definitions, advertising, research, seminars, media appearances, approval duties, disclosure controls, and supervision.
Learn how Series 14 tests telephone solicitation and cold-calling controls, including telemarketing restrictions, do-not-call procedures, call timing, approvals, and supervision.
High-yield Series 14 review for compliance workflows, surveillance, exception management, books and records, net capital basics, investment banking controls, registration, and communications.
Official FINRA resources for Series 14, including the Compliance Officer Exam page, content outline, registration rules, and compliance-control references.