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RMA® Certification Curriculum Overview

 

 

The skills needed to compete in today’s business climate is changing

IWI Capabilities Matrix
The Institute provides the tools and resources you need to build & retain your business. After careful research and input from industry leaders, we formulated an educational framework.

This framework, called the Investments & Wealth Management Capabilities Matrix is our guiding light, our North star, and we are happy to bring it to life through our executive educational programs so that you can succeed within today’s wealth management landscape.

The Investments & Wealth Management Capabilities Matrix

 

IWI Capabilities Matrix

 

The right combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, matter

The RMA® certification is uniquely designed to provide a useful and relevant balance of client diagnostics, retirement lifecycle plan, risk management and retirement planning best practices. It goes well beyond the fundamentals, with deep dives into legacy issues and specialty client services. The RMA® certification program provides a systematic process advisors and consultants can use to put their clients’ retirement strategies into action.

The Retirement Opportunity:  ​

  • The Retirement Landscape: Knowledge of critical retirement demographics and current trends, and the role of the client and advisor   ​

  • Retirement Mindset and Behavior: Knowledge of the evolution of retirement approaches, and understanding the behavioral science related to finance, aging, retirement, cognitive decline and family dynamics to positively impact client actions ​

  • The Ethical Advisor: Knowledge of business standards, regulatory requirements, ethics concepts and the code of professional responsibility ​

  ​The Retirement Client:  ​

  • Client Discovery and Analysis: Understanding the essentials of a prudent, client-oriented advisory process, and ability to create, implement, monitor and adjust retirement plans ​

  • Assessing Retirement Readiness: Ability to create scenario planning models and an optimized retirement income plans, prioritizing essential issues, assessing available capital for funding goals, utilizing assets and liabilities for creating income ​

  • Retirement Risk Management: Knowledge of approaches to risk management, and risk concepts, categories, assessments and strategies​

​Retirement Technical Design:  ​

  • Retirement Portfolio Allocations: Ability to structure the appropriate planning approach, including goals-based planning to build a repeatable retirement income planning client engagement process ​

  • Key Retirement Planning Decisions: Key knowledge of strategies for Social Security and Medicare and withdrawal policies, rules and risks ​

  • Implementations Strategies: Knowledge of portfolio allocations, product selection, and insurance, lending and investment vehicles, specific to delivering sustainable retirement income plans ​

  • Life in Transition: Ability to prepare for and address special situations, considerations and aging issues ​

  • Retirement Policy Statements: Understanding , monitoring, communicating the Retirement Policy Statement to provide clients with a road map for taking actions for their retirement income plan 

Ensuring you have the right skills is why we exist

Our rigorous curriculum was developed to ensure you have the extensive knowledge you need to drive your career and business moving forward.  


If you are a candidate for RMA® certification, the exam will test the major topic areas below

Exam Percentage

Domains

Sections

18%

The Retirement Opportunity

Chapter/Module 1—The Retirement Landscape: 5%
Chapter/Module 2---The Retirement Mindset: 8%
Chapter/Module 3---The Ethical Advisor: 5%

41%

The Retirement Client

Chapter/Module 4--- Client Discovery and Analysis 15%​
Chapter/Module 5--- Assessing Retirement Readiness 13%​
Chapter/Module 6--- Retirement Risk Management 13%

41%

Retirement Planning Technical Design

Chapter/Module 7---Retirement Portfolio Allocations = 10%
​Chapter/Module 8---Key Retirement Planning Decisions = 12%​
Chapter/Module 9---Implementation Strategies = 9%​
Chapter/Module 10---Life in Transition = 6%​
Chapter/Module 11---Retirement Policy Statement = 14%