A 45-minute, CPD-assessed course on the two regimes a UK fund manager actually lives under, taught side by side and without a single figure to memorise. Written for anybody in the firm rather than the finance director, around the ordinary decisions that move a firm across a line without anybody intending it.
CPD assessed. Every pass issues a certificate carrying the CPD mark.Most confusion at a fund manager comes from not knowing which of the two is speaking. The course teaches them side by side.
Decides what the firm may do with a fund: categories, delegation, the depositary, valuation, leverage, reporting and marketing.
Decides what the firm itself must hold and prove about its own survival: own funds, liquidity, the ICARA, wind-down and remuneration.
Examples are drawn from unauthorised AIFs sold to professional investors and from MIFIDPRU discretionary managers, because that is where most UK fund managers work.
What an AIF and an AIFM are, and why obligations follow what the firm is authorised as rather than what it invests in.
What decides which category a manager is, why the threshold between them matters to people outside finance, and how a fund launch or new borrowing can move a firm across it. Includes a filmed scenario.
You may hand out the work but not the answer: what a full-scope AIFM must be able to show about a delegate, the letter-box test, what a depositary is actually for, and why a private markets fund's depositary looks lighter.
Who may not value the fund, leverage limits and how they are measured, why risk management sits apart from portfolio management, and the transparency return to the FCA.
Why marketing a fund is a narrower and much earlier idea than the ordinary use of the word, a UK manager marketing a UK fund, and the national private placement regime.
Small and non-interconnected status and why the letters matter, the own funds requirement and what each of its limbs is asking, liquidity as a separate test, and the AIFM version for comparison.
What the process has to contain, and why the wind-down plan is the part that gets tested. Includes a filmed scenario.
The part of the prudential regime that reaches an individual's pay, malus and clawback, who owns what inside the firm, and an escalation list.
The test the course is written against: could somebody finishing it say what their firm is authorised as, what that requires, who owns each piece, and what they must pass up rather than absorb? By the end, a learner can:
Two short films, shot for Fundsure with the same cast across the catalogue. In one, a colleague is asked to set up a new fund that will have a borrowing facility. In the other, a change of administrator and a resignation have quietly undermined assumptions in the firm’s wind-down plan. After each, the learner chooses what to do, and is told why the tempting answers are wrong: treating it as a systems task, waiting until the fund actually borrows, waiting for the annual review, or reworking the figures before mentioning it.
The test at the end draws 10 questions from a bank of 30, with a pass mark of 80%, and a pass issues a named, CPD-marked certificate that anyone can check online.
Checked against the regulations, the Handbook and the July 2026 consultations. Last checked Sept 2026.
Published 14-Jul-26, it proposes replacing most of the UK AIFM rules with a new sourcebook and the full-scope and small split with small, medium and large managers set by net asset value. Envisaged for 2028.
Published the same day: size thresholds out of legislation, the small registration regime largely removed, and permission to market a UK AIF turned into a notification. Not in force; laying expected in early 2027.
The course teaches the regime firms actually operate under today, with one clear callout on what is coming, so nobody acts on a proposal as if it were law.
The thresholds are in euro and have not been uprated, which is part of why they are being reformed. The course teaches their effect, not the numbers.
The transparency return now goes in through RegData against a product reference number, with frequency scaled to assets under management.
Examples are drawn from unauthorised AIFs sold to professional investors and from MIFIDPRU discretionary managers, the world most UK fund managers work in. No UCITS, no retail platforms, no banks.
A fund that borrows, a document sent to the wrong investor, a delegate nobody really oversees, an administrator change nobody connected to the wind-down plan. None of these starts in the finance team, which is why the course is written for everybody else.
In the Fundsure Portal the course is scheduled for the whole firm, chased before the deadline, and every sitting, score and certificate is kept and carried into the compliance officer’s report to the board.
How the portal runs trainingAIFMD and IFPR plus SMCR, Compliance Officers, Operational Resilience and the rest of the catalogue of 20, with no per-course fees.
Who is answerable for what at a fund manager.
See the courseRunning the compliance function, including the ICARA and board MI.
See the courseDelegates and suppliers, and keeping important services running.
See the courseWhere marketing a fund meets the promotion rules.
See the courseWe will send you a link to take the whole course, filmed scenarios and test included, or walk you through the portal with a demonstration firm.
