The Diploma in Personal Financial Planning (DPFP) is a self-study professional programme developed and awarded by the Singapore College of Insurance (SCI) for insurance and financial advisory practitioners. It is not a single examination: candidates must pass six assessed modules, namely DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment, DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning, DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning, DPFP04 Investment Planning, DPFP05 Personal Financial Plan Construction, and DPFP05E Skills and Ethics for Financial Advisers. The programme suits financial planners, life insurance advisers, relationship managers, bancassurance staff, and other professionals who need applied financial planning knowledge. This guide organises thirty core concepts across the official module descriptions so you can revise each domain systematically. Use it as a structural companion to the official study texts, not a replacement for them. Work through the concepts by module, test yourself with the scenarios, and verify all administrative details, including current fees, schedules, and funding rules, directly with SCI before registering.
Exam and assessment essentials
- Programme structure
- Six modules must be passed: DPFP01 to DPFP05 plus DPFP05E, on a self-study basis developed and awarded by SCI[1][2]
- DPFP01 to DPFP04 format
- 2-hour examination, 100 multiple choice questions, minimum passing mark 70 marks[2]
- DPFP05 format
- 2-hour examination, 50 case-based multiple choice questions, minimum passing mark 35 marks[2]
- DPFP05E format
- 30-minute on-site examination, 30 multiple choice questions, minimum passing mark 24 marks, delivered through scheduled intakes that include an online learning course[2]
- Sequencing
- DPFP01 to DPFP04 may be taken in any order; DPFP05 requires passing DPFP01 to DPFP04 first; DPFP05E requires passing DPFP01 to DPFP05; maximum two modules may be registered at a time[2]
- Completion window
- All six modules must be passed within 36 months from the first registered DPFP examination date; candidates monitor this period themselves[2]
- Registration timing
- Registration for DPFP01 to DPFP05 opens two months ahead of each examination date and closes two working days before the examination date; DPFP05E instead follows intake-specific registration, online course and on-site examination dates published by SCI. Results of computer-mode examinations are released immediately upon completion.[2]
- Study texts
- Separate official study texts apply per module (for example, DPFP01 2nd Edition; DPFP02 3rd Edition; DPFP03 7th Edition; DPFP04 1st Edition; DPFP05 1st Edition), accessed electronically[2]
What the syllabus covers
This study map groups the official scope into revision themes. It is not an official chapter list or a prediction of question weightings.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
Explain the financial planning process, communication techniques, ethics, risk tolerance, time value of money, and the role and responsibilities of a financial planner, applying analytical skills to financial decisions[2]
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
Apply risk management techniques to personal risks, explain basic insurance principles and the classes of insurance, and carry out the steps of insurance and retirement planning[2]
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
Apply income tax law to individual transactions and plan for the minimisation and deferral of taxation; explain common law relevant to planning and the legal tools used in estate planning, including wills, trusts and powers of attorney[2]
DPFP04 Investment Planning
Compare risks and returns across forms of investment, select appropriate investment strategies, and apply a systematic approach to investment planning including dealing with volatile markets[2]
DPFP05 Personal Financial Plan Construction
Address practice and plan-construction issues: formulate a sound financial plan from client data, and present it effectively, supported by case study application[2]
DPFP05E Skills and Ethics for Financial Advisers
Explain the relationship between ethics and law, acting in the client's best interest, professional service delivery, and legal compliance in financial advisory work[2]
30 key concepts to understand
- The six-step financial planning process
- Time value of money: present and future value
- Risk tolerance versus risk capacity
- Fact-finding and client communication
- Role, responsibilities and ethics of the planner
- Cash-flow and budget analysis
- The risk management process
- Risk treatment options: avoid, reduce, retain, transfer
- Fundamental legal principles of insurance
- Term versus whole life insurance
- Indemnity contracts versus fixed-benefit contracts
- Insurance needs analysis steps
- Retirement income gap analysis
- Tax minimisation and deferral versus evasion
- The mechanics and value of tax-deferred growth
- Wills as an estate planning tool
- Trusts: control and protection of assets
- Powers of attorney and incapacity planning
- Life insurance in estate planning
- The risk-return trade-off
- Systematic versus unsystematic risk
- Asset allocation and time horizon
- Categories of investment risk
- Systematic investing and the limits of timing
- Portfolio rebalancing discipline
- Suitability of investment recommendations
- Constructing the financial plan: from data to recommendations
- Assumptions, limitations and effective presentation
- Integrating recommendations across planning domains
- Ethics and law in advisory practice
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
1. The six-step financial planning process
Financial planning follows a structured sequence: engaging the client, gathering data, analysing the current position, developing and presenting recommendations, implementing agreed actions, and monitoring and reviewing the plan. Each step feeds the next; poor data gathering corrupts analysis, and an unmonitored plan drifts from the client's circumstances. Examiners expect you to know why the sequence matters, not merely to list the steps in order.[2]
Common mistake: Treating implementation as the end of the process; the monitoring and review step is what keeps recommendations aligned with changing goals and circumstances.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
2. Time value of money: present and future value
Money available today can be invested to earn returns, so a dollar today is worth more than a dollar later. Future value compounds a current sum forward at a given rate; present value discounts a future sum backward. These mechanics underpin retirement funding, education cost projections, and comparing lump sums against instalment streams, and they appear throughout later modules.[2]
Common mistake: Mixing up compounding periods: quoting an annual rate but compounding monthly without adjusting the periodic rate and number of periods produces wrong answers.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
3. Risk tolerance versus risk capacity
Risk tolerance is the client's willingness to accept variability in outcomes, shaped by personality, experience and knowledge. Risk capacity is the objective ability to absorb losses given income stability, time horizon and existing assets. Sound profiling considers both: a willing but financially fragile investor has high tolerance but low capacity, and recommendations must respect the binding constraint.[2]
Common mistake: Equating a long time horizon automatically with high risk tolerance; willingness and capacity can diverge and both must be documented.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
4. Fact-finding and client communication
Effective planners gather quantitative facts, such as income, assets, liabilities and existing policies, and qualitative facts, such as goals, family obligations and attitudes, using open-ended questioning and active listening. Communication quality determines data accuracy; a plan built on misunderstood objectives fails even if the arithmetic is perfect. Record-keeping of the fact-find also supports compliance and review.[2]
Common mistake: Leading questions that steer clients toward a pre-selected product, which distorts the fact-find and undermines suitability.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
5. Role, responsibilities and ethics of the planner
The planner's role carries fiduciary-style responsibilities: competence, honesty, disclosure of remuneration and conflicts, and placing client interests first. DPFP01 treats ethics as part of the planning environment, and DPFP05E later builds on it. Candidates should understand that ethical duties exist independently of what a contract technically permits, and that disclosure obligations apply throughout the relationship.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming anything not expressly forbidden by regulation is therefore acceptable; professional ethical standards often demand more than the legal minimum.
DPFP01 Financial Planning: Process and Environment
6. Cash-flow and budget analysis
Analytical skill in planning starts with the client's cash flow: categorising income and expenditure, identifying the savings surplus, and testing whether planned contributions are affordable. Simple ratios, such as the savings rate or the proportion of income consumed by debt servicing, convert raw figures into decision-useful information and reveal whether goals are realistically funded.[2]
Common mistake: Using gross income in affordability analysis while ignoring committed deductions such as employee CPF contributions, which overstates discretionary cash.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
7. The risk management process
Risk management is systematic: identify the personal risks faced, such as premature death, disability, illness, property loss and liability; evaluate their frequency and severity; select treatment techniques; and monitor results. Insurance is one tool within this framework, not the framework itself. DPFP02 emphasises treating risks faced by individuals using these techniques before discussing any product class.[2]
Common mistake: Jumping from risk identification straight to product recommendation without evaluating severity and frequency, which is the analytical heart of the module.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
8. Risk treatment options: avoid, reduce, retain, transfer
Four treatment families exist. Avoidance eliminates the activity creating the risk. Reduction lowers frequency or severity, for example through safety measures. Retention means bearing the loss, suitable for low-severity exposures and often combined with deductibles. Transfer shifts financial consequences to another party, typically an insurer. Choices balance cost against exposure; most personal plans mix all four.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming insurance is always the answer; retaining small, predictable losses is usually cheaper than insuring them because premiums embed insurer expenses and profit margins.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
9. Fundamental legal principles of insurance
Insurance contracts rest on principles including insurable interest, utmost good faith, indemnity in general insurance, contribution, subrogation and proximate cause. Insurable interest requires the policyholder to suffer financially from the insured event, deterring wagering. Utmost good faith obliges honest disclosure. Proximate cause determines which perils' chain of events triggers cover. These principles explain why claims are paid or declined.[2]
Common mistake: Treating indemnity as universal: it governs general insurance compensation, while life contracts are benefit contracts, a distinction tested through claim scenarios.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
10. Term versus whole life insurance
Term insurance provides pure protection for a fixed period: if death occurs within the term, the sum assured is paid; otherwise cover lapses with no value. Whole life provides lifelong cover and accumulates cash value through level premiums. Term is cheaper per unit of cover, fitting temporary high-need periods; whole life fits permanent needs and forced-savings objectives.[2]
Common mistake: Calling lapsed term cover 'wasted money'; the cover performed its purpose during the years the risk was insured, like any expired protection service.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
11. Indemnity contracts versus fixed-benefit contracts
General insurance, such as fire, motor and most property covers, operates on indemnity: the payout aims to restore the insured's financial position without profit, subject to policy terms and limits. Life insurance and many health products are fixed-benefit contracts: the contracted sum is payable on the insured event regardless of actual financial loss. The distinction governs what a claimant can expect.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming a life or fixed-benefit health payout is capped at proven loss; benefit contracts pay the contractual amount, subject to the policy's own terms.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
12. Insurance needs analysis steps
Insurance planning follows defined steps: establish objectives, gather data on dependants, income, debts and existing cover, quantify the protection gap using methods such as income replacement or needs-based computation, recommend products and sums assured to close the gap, and review periodically. The needs-based approach itemises final expenses, outstanding debts, education funds and dependants' support, less liquid assets and existing cover.[2]
Common mistake: Double-counting assets already earmarked for another goal, such as counting retirement savings both as investable assets and as available to pay final expenses.
DPFP02 Risk Management, Insurance and Retirement Planning
13. Retirement income gap analysis
Retirement planning compares projected retirement expenses with expected income sources across the retirement period. The planner adjusts expenses for inflation to retirement date, estimates income from savings, rental or pension-like sources, and computes the shortfall that additional accumulation must fund. The gap then determines the required savings level using time-value-of-money techniques from DPFP01.[2]
Common mistake: Projecting at today's prices without inflation adjustment; a goal 25 years away at 2 percent annual inflation needs roughly 1.64 times today's amount, not today's amount.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
14. Tax minimisation and deferral versus evasion
DPFP03 covers applying income tax law to individual transactions and planning to minimise or defer taxation. Minimisation and deferral use lawful structure and timing, such as choosing income types or arranging transactions to fall within available reliefs and allowances. Evasion is illegal concealment or misrepresentation. The planner's craft is keeping recommendations firmly on the lawful side of that line.[2]
Common mistake: Describing aggressive schemes that lack commercial substance as 'planning'; clients may face reassessment and penalties, and the adviser faces professional consequences.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
15. The mechanics and value of tax-deferred growth
Deferral does not necessarily reduce tax; it postpones it, letting the full pre-tax return compound instead of a smaller after-tax return each period. The compounding advantage grows with the holding period and the return rate, which is why long-horizon investors benefit most. Candidates should be able to compare after-tax accumulation under annual taxation against tax-deferred accumulation.[2]
Common mistake: Claiming deferral always leaves the investor better off after exit; if exit taxation or changed rates outweigh the compounding benefit, the advantage can shrink or reverse.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
16. Wills as an estate planning tool
A will records how a person's estate should be distributed, appoints executors to administer it, and may appoint guardians for minor children. For a will to operate, it must satisfy formal validity requirements. Where someone dies without a valid will, distribution falls to intestacy law rather than personal wishes, which may not match the deceased's intentions and can complicate administration.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming a will overrides every asset's destination; assets such as joint property or policies with nominated beneficiaries may pass outside the will by their own terms.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
17. Trusts: control and protection of assets
A trust separates legal ownership, held by trustees, from beneficial enjoyment, held by beneficiaries, under a trust deed or declaration. Trusts allow staggered distribution to young beneficiaries, continued management after incapacity or death, and protection of assets from beneficiaries' imprudence, within legal limits. Costs, trustee duties and irreversibility considerations make trust design a matter requiring careful matching to objectives.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming a trust automatically saves tax; trust arrangements can attract their own tax treatment, so the objective must be defined before the structure is chosen.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
18. Powers of attorney and incapacity planning
Estate planning addresses incapacity, not only death. A power of attorney authorises a chosen person to manage the donor's affairs; durable or lasting forms are designed to survive the donor's mental incapacity, when an ordinary appointment would fail. Without such arrangements, family members may need court-appointed avenues to manage affairs, adding delay and cost at a distressing time.[2]
Common mistake: Confusing death planning with incapacity planning; a will takes effect only on death and does nothing to authorise anyone to act during the donor's lifetime.
DPFP03 Tax, Estate Planning and Legal Aspects of Financial Planning
19. Life insurance in estate planning
Life insurance features in estate planning because the sum assured can provide prompt liquidity for expenses and debts, equalise inheritances among heirs, and pass value to named beneficiaries under the policy's own machinery, independent of the will's administration process where the policy terms so provide. This makes it a coordination tool between the estate plan and the risk management plan.[2]
Common mistake: Assuming policy proceeds always bypass the estate automatically; the treatment of proceeds depends on the policy's terms and how the policy is arranged, so coordination must be checked case by case.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
20. The risk-return trade-off
Investments offering higher expected returns carry greater uncertainty of those returns; there is no reliable high-return, low-risk combination. DPFP04 requires comparing risks and returns across asset classes such as cash, fixed income, equities and property. The practical skill is matching an investor's required return, capacity for loss and time horizon to an asset class mix, rather than chasing returns in isolation.[2]
Common mistake: Reading past returns as guarantees; expected return is a forward-looking probability-weighted figure, and historical performance can and does fail to repeat.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
21. Systematic versus unsystematic risk
Unsystematic risk is specific to a company or industry, such as a product failure, and can be reduced by holding many different securities. Systematic risk, such as economy-wide market movements, affects all securities together and cannot be diversified away. The essential limitation: adding holdings eliminates the diversifiable portion of risk only, while market-wide exposure remains.[2]
Common mistake: Telling clients a well-diversified portfolio eliminates risk; it eliminates only the specific, diversifiable component, which is why diversification is not a substitute for matching risk to capacity.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
22. Asset allocation and time horizon
Asset allocation is the division of a portfolio among asset classes, and it shapes the portfolio's overall risk and return far more than individual security choice. Allocation should reflect the goal's time horizon and the investor's capacity to bear interim losses: longer horizons can absorb more volatility, while near-term goals need stability regardless of the investor's general risk appetite.[2]
Common mistake: Allocating by product preference or recent performance instead of by goal, horizon and risk capacity, which inverts the planning logic.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
23. Categories of investment risk
Beyond market risk, investors face inflation risk, the erosion of purchasing power by safe but low-yielding assets; liquidity risk, the inability to sell quickly without a price penalty; credit or default risk on debt instruments; reinvestment risk when maturing funds must be redeployed at lower rates; and currency risk on foreign assets. Product suitability depends on which risks dominate each goal.[2]
Common mistake: Equating 'no volatility' with 'no risk'; stable nominal value can still hide substantial real-value erosion, the classic inflation-risk trap for conservative savers.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
24. Systematic investing and the limits of timing
Investing a fixed amount at regular intervals, often called dollar-cost averaging, buys more units when prices are low and fewer when prices are high, smoothing the average entry price and removing the emotional burden of choosing a single entry point. It disciplines behaviour in volatile markets but does not guarantee a profit or protect against losses in falling markets.[2]
Common mistake: Presenting regular investing as a risk-reduction strategy; it manages entry-price timing behaviour but the investor remains fully exposed to market direction afterwards.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
25. Portfolio rebalancing discipline
Over time, outperforming assets drift above their target weights and raise the portfolio's risk beyond the agreed allocation. Rebalancing restores targets by trimming winners and adding to laggards, enforcing a mechanical sell-high, buy-low pattern and keeping risk consistent with the client's profile. It can be triggered by calendar intervals or by tolerance bands around target weights.[2]
Common mistake: Forgetting transaction costs and, where relevant, tax consequences; rebalancing too frequently erodes returns, so thresholds or intervals should be defined in the plan.
DPFP04 Investment Planning
26. Suitability of investment recommendations
A systematic approach to investment planning culminates in suitability: the recommendation must match the client's objectives, time horizon, risk profile and financial situation, and the client must understand the product's features and risks. This links DPFP04's technical content to the advisory context and to the ethical framework of DPFP05E, where client best interest governs product placement.[2]
Common mistake: Treating a signed risk questionnaire as a substitute for suitability analysis; the analysis connects the documented profile to the specific product's liquidity, horizon and risk features.
DPFP05 Personal Financial Plan Construction
27. Constructing the financial plan: from data to recommendations
Plan construction converts analysis into a coherent document: state the client's current position, identify gaps against each goal, set prioritised recommendations with reasoning, and specify implementation steps and responsibilities. DPFP05 is the practice-based complement to the theory modules and is examined through case-based questions, so candidates must assemble recommendations across insurance, investment, retirement and estate domains into one plan.[2]
Common mistake: Writing a plan as a product list; every recommendation must trace back to a stated goal or gap identified in the analysis, or it fails the construction logic.
DPFP05 Personal Financial Plan Construction
28. Assumptions, limitations and effective presentation
Every plan rests on assumptions, such as inflation, returns, income growth and lifespan, that must be stated explicitly along with the plan's limitations, so the client understands what would change the conclusions. Presentation matters: recommendations in order of priority, quantified impacts, and plain-language explanation make the plan usable. Unrealistic or hidden assumptions are a common construction failure.[2]
Common mistake: Presenting a single deterministic outcome as certainty instead of showing sensitivity to key assumptions, which leaves the client unprepared for deviation.
DPFP05 Personal Financial Plan Construction
29. Integrating recommendations across planning domains
Case-based assessment rewards integration: one client decision ripples across domains. Insurance effectively protects the investment plan, tax timing changes investment net returns, and estate structures determine who ultimately receives assets. Strong candidates detect interactions and conflicts, such as a premium burden crowding out retirement savings, and propose coordinated rather than isolated solutions.[2]
Common mistake: Optimising each domain in isolation; a technically perfect insurance recommendation can still be a poor plan if it makes other goals unaffordable.
DPFP05E Skills and Ethics for Financial Advisers
30. Ethics and law in advisory practice
DPFP05E treats ethics and legal compliance as twin pillars: ethics requires professional service and genuine consideration of the client's best interest, while law sets enforceable minimums. The key skill is seeing the relationship between the two, since lawful conduct can still be ethically poor, and applying both seamlessly in day-to-day advisory decisions rather than treating them as separate checklists.[2]
Common mistake: Believing compliance with rules automatically equals ethical conduct; the module expects advisers to reason beyond the minimum standard when interests conflict.
How to revise for DPFP
1. Stage 1: Map the programme and fix your sequence
Confirm with SCI which intake dates suit you, remembering DPFP01 to DPFP04 can be sat in any order, DPFP05 only after those four, and DPFP05E last, with at most two modules registered at once. Plan backwards from the 36-month completion window counted from your first registered examination, and diarise registration deadlines: for DPFP01 to DPFP05 registration closes two working days before each examination date, while DPFP05E follows its own intake-specific registration, online course and on-site exam dates, so check these directly with SCI.
2. Stage 2: Master DPFP01's toolkit first
The planning process, time value of money and risk profiling recur in every later module. Drill present value, future value and annuity-style calculations with a non-programmable financial calculator until you can switch between compounding frequencies without errors, then practise classifying clients by tolerance versus capacity using short vignettes.
3. Stage 3: Work each study text domain by domain
Use the official study text for each registered module, noting that editions are module-specific and access is electronic. For DPFP02 and DPFP03, build one-page summaries contrasting paired ideas: indemnity versus fixed benefit, minimisation versus deferral, will versus trust versus power of attorney. For DPFP04, summarise each risk type with its own original example rather than memorising definitions.
4. Stage 4: Convert theory into case reasoning
DPFP05 is examined through 50 case-based questions, and DPFP01 to DPFP04 questions also embed scenarios. Practise reading a fact-find and asking: what are the goals, what is the gap, what is the binding constraint, and which recommendation follows? Write your reasoning in two sentences before checking answers; this mirrors how case questions discriminate between candidates.
5. Stage 5: Sit eMock papers under time pressure
Use the official eMock papers for each registered module under exam timing: 2 hours for 100 questions in DPFP01 to DPFP04 means roughly 70 seconds per question, while DPFP05's 50 case-based questions in 2 hours allows longer reading per stem. Track error patterns, such as calculation slips versus concept confusion, and re-study the underlying concept, not just the missed question.
6. Stage 6: Prepare administration and finish with DPFP05E
Before each exam day, reconfirm the venue, timing, required identification and calculator policy on the SCI site, and remember results of computer-mode exams are released immediately. Leave DPFP05E for last: it runs through scheduled intakes with an online learning course you must complete before the 30-minute, 30-question on-site paper with a 24-mark pass threshold, so check intake dates, course completion requirements and on-site exam dates with SCI. Revising the ethics-versus-law distinction and best-interest application also reinforces the ethical thread running through all five earlier modules.
Test your understanding
These original learning scenarios are for revision; they are not official examination questions.
1. A client invests a 10,000 lump sum for two years at 5 percent per annum, compounded annually, with no tax or fees. A colleague claims the client will have 11,000 because 5 percent of 10,000 is 500 per year. Is the colleague right, and what is the correct ending value?
Show answer and explanation
No. Compounding adds interest on interest: year one grows the sum to 10,500, and year two earns 5 percent on 10,500, adding 525 for an ending value of 11,025, not 11,000. The colleague's method is simple interest, which ignores the compounding effect that the time-value-of-money framework requires.[2]
2. A client holds a general fire policy on stock worth 30,000, which is totally destroyed, and a hospital cash plan paying 200 per day. The fire loss is 30,000 and the client is confined for five days. Explain how much each contract pays and why the payment logic differs.
Show answer and explanation
The fire policy, as general insurance, applies indemnity: it restores the actual financial loss, so it pays 30,000, subject to policy terms and limits. The hospital cash plan is a fixed-benefit contract: it pays the contracted 200 per day, or 1,000 for five days, regardless of the actual treatment cost, because benefit contracts pay the stated amount rather than compensating proven loss.[2]
3. An investor holds 20 different equities spread across sectors and tells her adviser the portfolio now carries no risk because it is fully diversified. How should the adviser correct this, using a market-wide downturn as illustration?
Show answer and explanation
The adviser should explain that diversification removes only unsystematic, company-specific risk. Holding 20 stocks across sectors dilutes the damage from any single company's failure, but systematic risk, the movement of the whole market in an economy-wide downturn, affects all the holdings together and cannot be diversified away. The portfolio still carries meaningful market risk that must match her risk capacity.[2]
Frequently asked questions
Is the DPFP a single examination, and how do I avoid confusing it with other SCI products?
No. The DPFP is a six-module programme: DPFP01 to DPFP05 plus DPFP05E, each examined separately. Regulatory examinations such as RES5 are separate SCI products and are not part of the DPFP. Confirm the correct entry details with SCI before registering.[1][2][3]
What is the format and passing mark for each DPFP module exam?
DPFP01 to DPFP04: 2 hours, 100 multiple choice questions, pass at 70 marks. DPFP05: 2 hours, 50 case-based multiple choice questions, pass at 35 marks. DPFP05E: 30 minutes, 30 multiple choice questions, pass at 24 marks. Computer-mode exam results are released immediately on completion.[2]
In what order must I take the DPFP modules, and how many can I register for at once?
DPFP01 to DPFP04 may be attempted in any order, but DPFP05 requires passing all four first, and DPFP05E requires passing DPFP01 to DPFP05. You may register for a maximum of two modules at a time. For DPFP01 to DPFP05, registration closes two working days before each examination date; DPFP05E runs on scheduled intakes with its own registration, online course and on-site exam dates, so confirm these with SCI.[2]
How long do I have to complete the whole DPFP programme?
You must pass all six modules within 36 months, counted from the date of your first registered DPFP examination. SCI does not send reminders, so tracking the window is your own responsibility; passes older than the window count as outdated and would not meet the qualifying requirements.[2]
Does passing the DPFP give me a licence or the ChFC/S designation?
No licence or designation other than the programme's own outcome: on completing and passing all modules, including DPFP05E, you are eligible to use the certification designation Dip SCI (DPFP). The DPFP is an education qualification, not a regulatory licence, and ChFC/S is a separate programme for which DPFP holders receive exemptions, as set out by SCI.[2]
Official sources and review notes
Public IBF and SCI sources were checked on 16 September 2026 for syllabus scope and assessment details, with additional primary references where listed. References identify the relevant syllabus or subject source; explanations and examples are original teaching material. This guide selects important concepts and does not replace the full official study text. Confirm the applicable edition and any updates with the administrator before your assessment.