Series IX covers merchant banking — the issue management side of the securities market. It has a narrower audience than most NISM papers, and a very specific one: staff of SEBI-registered merchant bankers.
Exam at a glance
| Duration | 120 minutes |
|---|---|
| Maximum marks | 100 |
| Pass mark | 60% |
| Negative marking | 25% |
| Fee | ₹1,500 |
| Validity | 3 years |
Verified against the official NISM list; confirm before registering. Full comparison on our exams table.
Who sits it
Employees of registered merchant bankers whose roles require certification under SEBI's rules. The obligation is role-dependent — confirm with your compliance team, since merchant banking teams cover a range of functions and not all carry the same requirement.
What the paper covers
From the official workbook, free from nism.ac.in and the authoritative syllabus:
- The merchant banker's role and registration requirements
- Issue management — public issues, rights issues, the process end to end
- Due diligence and the merchant banker's responsibilities
- The offer document — contents, disclosure requirements, filing
- Pricing, allotment and listing
- Other activities — buybacks, open offers, delisting, takeovers
- SEBI regulations governing merchant bankers and issues
- Obligations, code of conduct and consequences of non-compliance
What kind of exam it is
Merchant banking is a process business, and the exam tests the process: what must be disclosed, filed, and by when — not whether you can reason about capital markets in general.
Like Series VI, this is a paper where precision beats intuition. Questions turn on specific obligations, disclosure requirements and sequences. Knowing broadly how an IPO works will not carry you; the exam asks what the regulations require at each step.
That makes it highly learnable for anyone prepared to work through the regulatory chapters properly, and unforgiving for anyone relying on general market knowledge.
Where candidates lose marks
Takeovers, buybacks and delisting. The activities beyond issue management, less frequently encountered day to day and each with their own precise rules. Disproportionately represented in questions relative to how much time candidates give them.
Disclosure requirements treated loosely. The offer document's contents are specified. "Roughly what goes in a prospectus" is not an answer.
Assuming job experience substitutes for study. Common among working merchant banking staff — you know your desk's part of the process; the exam covers all of it, including the regulatory basis for steps you execute without thinking about why.
How to prepare
Three to four weeks alongside a job:
- Read the workbook once, marking every place a timeline, threshold or filing requirement appears.
- Build a process map of a public issue from appointment to listing, with the regulatory obligation at each stage. Most of the paper hangs off this.
- Study the non-issue activities separately — takeovers, buybacks, open offers, delisting. Do not leave them to the last week.
- Practise timed. 25% negative marking means a half-remembered regulatory detail is a losing guess — see passing marks and negative marking.
We do not currently offer a Series IX mock test
Plainly: we do not sell one, and none of the papers we cover overlaps meaningfully with merchant banking. The exams we do offer are listed on our mock tests page.
For Series IX, work from the official workbook and any practice material you can confirm is mapped to the current edition. If we add it later, this guide is upgraded in place rather than replaced.
After you pass
Valid three years, then renewal through CPE or by passing the current version again — see validity and renewal. In a regulated function, a lapsed certification is a firm-level compliance issue, not just a personal one.
Sitting a paper we do cover? Our mock tests use the real exam interface and timing, with an explanation for every question and a score for every attempt. Free demo before you pay. See our mock tests
