Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment · RQF Level 4
CISI Level 4 Certificate in Paraplanning
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 4
- Total credits26
- Guided learning29 hours
- Units in this qualification6
Awarded by Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment · on the Ofqual register
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See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
The Certificate in Paraplanning was developed in conjunction with Paraplanners, Financial Planners and trainers to test the application of skills and the technical knowledge needed by Paraplanners.
These are the units Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Financial Planning & AdviceReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the key areas of financial protection.
- Understand the key areas of retirement planning.
- Understand the core concepts and application of financial planning.
Financial Planning & AdviceReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the principles of financial planning.
- Understand the principles of financial protection.
- Understand the principles of retirement planning.
- Understand different retirement solutions.
- Formulate financial planning recommendations.
Investment, Risk and TaxationReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the characteristics, risks and return of asset classes and their correlation, including equities, bonds, property, and alternative investments.
- Understand the macro-economic environment, its trends and impact on the economy and asset classes, including inflation, interest rates, and economic growth.
- Understand the principles of investment risk and return and related models of investment theory, including Modern Portfolio Theory and the Capital Asset Pricing Model.
- Understand the UK tax system as it applies to private individuals, trusts and charities, including income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax.
- Understand the main types, characteristics, tax treatment, inherent risks and behaviours of investment products, including unit trusts, investment trusts, and offshore funds.
- Understand the principles and theory of asset allocation and portfolio construction, including diversification, rebalancing, and strategic asset allocation.
- Understand the rules, process and responsibilities of giving financial advice, including fact-finding, suitability assessments, and providing recommendations.
- Understand portfolio performance review and the performance of investments, including calculating returns, benchmarking, and analysing performance drivers.
Personal TaxationReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Demonstrate an understanding of the UK tax system as relevant to the needs and circumstances of individuals and trusts
- Analyse the taxation of investments as relevant to the needs and circumstances of individuals and trusts
- Analyse the role and relevance of tax in the financial affairs of individuals and trusts
- Apply the knowledge of personal taxation to the provision of investment advice
Principles of Financial PlanningReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Demonstrate an understanding of savings and investments, both single premium and regular premium solutions, and their tax treatment and application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of protection solutions, their tax treatment and application in the Financial Planning process.
- Analyse protection solutions and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of retirement solutions and their tax treatment and application in the Financial Planning process.
- Analyse retirement solutions and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of estate planning and its application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of Financial Planning fundamentals.
- Apply Financial Planning fundamentals.
- Demonstrate an understanding of ethics and Codes of Practice and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of risk and its application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of assets and liabilities and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of income and expenditure and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how to apply the six steps of Financial Planning.
- Demonstrate an understanding of assumptions and their application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of research and its application in Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of asset allocation and its application in the Financial Planning process.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the principles and application of cashflow forecasting.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the required documentation and processes to implement Financial Planning recommendations.
- Demonstrate an understanding of client reviews and their application in the Financial Planning process.
Taxation in the UK for individuals & TrustsReal unit · Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the UK tax system as it applies to private individuals and trusts.
- Understand the tax treatment of investment products.
- Understand the key principles of tax planning and advice.
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 4 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Assess the client’s financial circumstances
- Assist with the implementation of the financial strategy as agreed with the client
- Carry out research to inform the development of the financial strategy for the client
- Prepare financial statements to support development of the client's financial strategy
- Propose financial solutions for the client
Where this can lead
Associate Financial Advisor
Your journey starts here, at the very core of our finance operations. We're looking for someone eager to learn, committed to accuracy, and ready to build a strong foundation for a rewarding career in finance. If you're ready to roll up your sleeves and become an indispensable part of our team, we'd love to hear from you.
See the whole journey →Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
This unit provides learners with knowledge of financial protection, retirement planning, and core financial planning concepts. Learners will analyse protection products' suitability and understand pension scheme features.
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for CISI Level 4 Certificate in Paraplanning
5 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.
- Financial Planning & Advice
- Investment, Risk and Taxation
- Personal Taxation
- Principles of Financial Planning
- Taxation in the UK for individuals & Trusts
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.