Certified Treasury Professional (AFP) Practice Exam
The Certified Treasury Professional (CTP) designation, offered by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), is a globally recognized credential for professionals in the treasury field. It signifies your expertise and proficiency in managing an organization's financial resources effectively.
Who should consider the CTP certification?
This certification is ideal for individuals who:
- Are currently working in corporate treasury or related roles (e.g., cash management, risk management, investment management).
- Want to advance their careers in treasury or transition into the field.
- Desire to gain a comprehensive understanding of core treasury principles and best practices.
Key Roles and Responsibilities:
Individuals with the CTP credential can be involved in various tasks, including:
- Cash management: Optimizing cash flow, forecasting, and managing liquidity.
- Banking relationships: Establishing and maintaining relationships with financial institutions.
- Risk management: Identifying, assessing, and mitigating financial risks.
- Investments: Managing the organization's investment portfolio.
- Financial planning and analysis (FP&A): Contributing to financial planning, forecasting, and budgeting.
Prerequisites
Applicants for the test must have two or more years of full-time job experience in a corporate finance-related career. A graduate-level degree in finance or two years of full-time, university-level teaching in a finance area is equivalent to one year of work experience for individuals with fewer than two years of experience.
Exam Details:
- Exam Name: CTP Certified Treasury Professional
- Exam Provider: Association for Financial Professionals (AFP)
- Format: Computer-based, multiple-choice questions
- Number of Questions: 170
- Duration: 4 hours
- Passing Score: 75%
- Delivery: Testing center or online proctored
Course structure
1. Domain 1: Maintain corporate liquidity required to meet current and future obligations in a timely and cost effective manner (25%)
- Manage optimal cash positioning through short-term investing and borrowing activities
- Forecast/manage cash receipts and disbursements [cash flows]
- Leverage cash concentration/pooling structures
- Manage foreign exchange (FX) exposure
- Manage trade financing (including letters of credit)
- Manage intercompany financing (including loans, repatriation, in-house banking)
- Review cash balances and reconcile transaction activity to ensure accuracy
- Optimize treasury operations (including considerations for roles/responsibilities and outsourcing options)
- Calculate, analyze, and evaluate financial ratios to optimize financial decision making
2. Domain 2: Manage capital structure, manage costs of long-term capital, and quantitatively evaluate long-term capital resource investments (18%)
- Negotiate and manage syndicated agreements
- Manage investment portfolio
- Issue debt and equity
- Manage revolving debt agreements
- Assess impact of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures
- Evaluate current market conditions (including credit availability, spreads, interest rates, terms, risk) as they relate to long-term borrowing strategies
3. Domain 3: Manage internal and external relationships (20%)
- Build, maintain, and review relationships with external financial service providers
- Evaluate and implement treasury products and services (including banking products, treasury workstations)
- Administer bank accounts (including bank fee analysis) and maintain documentation
- Identify, negotiate, and select relationships and operational agreements with external service providers (including financial, technological, and investment/retirement advisors) to ensure best practices and competitive pricing
- Serve as an internal trusted advisor and consultant (including Project Finance)
- Manage merchant services programs (including fees, risk, controls, card security compliance, retention requirements)
- Build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders (including accounting, IT, legal, and tax departments)
4. Domain 4: Monitor and control corporate exposure to financial, regulatory, and operational risk (including emerging and reputational risk) (25%)
- Comply with treasury policies and procedures (such as investment, FX, risk management, hedging, credit approval)
- Draft treasury policies and procedures for approval (such as investment, FX, risk management, hedging, credit approval)
- Detect and mitigate fraud (such as payments, bank transactions, internal, external)
- Benchmark performance against external sources to ensure best practices (including banking fees comparative analysis)
- Evaluate and manage counterparty risk (including risk related to supply chain, banks, brokers, dealers)
- Develop, maintain, and test business continuity plans (including bank balance reporting process, funds transfer capabilities)
- Hedge FX, interest rate, and commodities exposure
- Ensure regulatory compliance, and report internally and externally on compliance
5. Domain 5: Assess impact of technologies on the treasury function (12%)
- Leverage technology systems (including enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and treasury management systems)
- Identify security issues and concerns associated with new and existing technology
- Identify cyber-related risks
- Monitor information security risk and cyber-related risk (including e-mail scams, phishing scams)