SCI CMFAS RES5 Scenario Practice Guide
Use a repeatable method for RES5 regulatory, ethics, fact-find, recommendation, control, incident, and client-review scenarios.
A six-step decision method
1. Identify the actor
Name the financial adviser, exempt financial adviser, representative, introducer, client, insurer, fund manager, trustee, supervisor, board, or regulator. Similar duties can belong to different actors.
2. Classify the activity and scope
Determine whether the facts concern advice, a recommendation, arranging, execution, marketing, research, distribution, screening, reporting, supervision, or portfolio review. Identify the client and product scope stated in the question.
3. Locate the governing source
Choose the FAA, FAR, SFA, MAS notice, MAS guideline, code, CPF rule, ethical principle, or advisory-process requirement that controls the issue. Do not treat every sensible business practice as a regulatory requirement.
4. Locate the process stage
Separate onboarding, fact finding, analysis, recommendation, disclosure, client consent, transaction, monitoring, incident handling, investigation, reporting, and remediation.
5. Find the decisive evidence
Look for the client fact, status, declaration, recommendation basis, disclosure, acknowledgement, approval, transaction record, alert, investigation conclusion, escalation, or review note that proves the requirement was met.
6. Choose the proportionate response
Prefer the answer that addresses the specific defect, protects the client, preserves evidence, and follows the correct authority and sequence. Avoid options that assume an unstated exemption, automatically escalate to the most severe consequence, or repair a later stage while leaving the original failure unresolved.
Common scenario families
| Scenario | First classification | Decisive evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Representative makes a recommendation | Actor, client, product, and recommendation scope | Fact find, reasonable basis, conflicts, disclosures, acknowledgement, and record |
| Client asks for a different product | Recommended or non-recommended route and transaction stage | Client request, warning, required checks, decision, approval, and audit trail |
| Introducer passes a prospect to an adviser | Introduction boundary versus regulated advice | Script, compensation, representations, information collected, and hand-off record |
| Screening identifies a possible match | Customer risk, sanctions exposure, and suspicion status | Identifiers, screening sources, investigation, escalation, transaction hold, and report timing |
| Technology or cyber incident occurs | Critical system, service impact, threshold, and reporting trigger | Detection time, impact, outage record, containment, recovery, notification, and remediation |
| Product or distribution control fails | Product scope, mandatory requirement, delegation, and accountability | Policy, review evidence, error scope, trustee or compliance escalation, correction, and records |
| Ethical conflict affects a client decision | Conflict type, client interest, fairness, and informed choice | Disclosure, avoidance or control, consent where relevant, recommendation basis, and supervision |
| Adviser prepares a financial plan | Objective, fact completeness, assumption, analysis, and priority | Cash flow, balance sheet, needs calculation, alternatives, recommendation, and review agreement |
Handling close options
- Prefer the answer assigned to the correct actor.
- Prefer the source that actually governs the stated activity.
- Prefer evidence of a completed control over a policy promising that the control exists.
- Prefer the action appropriate to the current process stage.
- Reject answers that substitute disclosure for suitability, authority, or a missing safeguard.
- Keep ethical duties, legal duties, guideline expectations, and internal controls distinct while recognising that one scenario may engage more than one.
Use the cheat sheet while learning the method, then repeat with unseen questions without the reference.