Introduction
Welcome to the Solomon Series 14 Exam Guide! The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) requires broker-dealer member firms to employ at least one registered person to oversee compliance. If you’re reading this, that person is likely going to be you.
To become a compliance officer, you can pass the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam, the Series 7, and the Series 24. Or you can pass the Series 14 Compliance Officer exam. In other words, by taking the Series 14 you get to take one exam instead of three exams. For this reason, the Series 14 is broader, deeper, and more difficult than most FINRA exams.
The Series 14 exam was designed to make sure that individuals who have day-to-day compliance responsibilities or supervise others engaged in compliance activities have the knowledge necessary to carry out their job responsibilities.
Originally, the Series 14 was a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) exam created for individuals responsible for handling daily compliance duties at their firm or who supervise ten or more people engaged in compliance activities. A big part of being a compliance officer is making sure that everyone in your firm knows and plays by the rules. But getting the Series 14 is more than learning about playing by the rules; becoming a compliance officer means you will be responsible for supervising the compliance activities of others. As a result, the Series 14 exam is heavy on rules, especially as they relate to supervision.
Today, the Series 14 is owned by FINRA, and FINRA divides the Series 14 exam into nine areas. These areas are organized by the types of knowledge that a compliance officer will need to know to complete various job functions. For purposes of clarity, we have organized this text into the same nine sections, except that we have made the material on research reports and research analysts into its own chapter, Chapter 10, because readers have told us they prefer to have this information in