NISM Series 7 — Securities Operations and Risk Management, often shortened to SORM — is the certification for the people who make a stock broker work after the order is placed. Settlement, margins, risk limits, client accounts, investor grievances. If your job sits in a broker's operations or risk team, this is very likely your paper.
It has one feature that sets it apart from most NISM exams: the pass mark is 50%, not 60%, even though wrong answers still cost you 25%. The figures are below, and all 34 certifications are compared on our exams table.
Exam at a glance
| Duration | 120 minutes |
|---|---|
| Maximum marks | 100 |
| Pass mark | 50% |
| Negative marking | 25% |
| Fee | ₹1,500 |
| Validity | 3 years |
Verified against the official NISM list; confirm before registering.
Who sits it
Associated persons of stock brokers and other intermediaries who work in operations, settlement, risk management, compliance support and client servicing — the functions that handle money, securities and client records rather than giving advice or trading.
Whether your specific role requires it is set by SEBI and applied by your employer. Confirm your obligation with your compliance team rather than inferring it from a job title. Titles vary widely between firms; the regulatory requirement attaches to what you do.
What the paper covers
The official workbook, free to download from nism.ac.in, is the authoritative syllabus. Broadly, it covers:
- The securities market structure — exchanges, clearing corporations, depositories and the intermediaries between them
- Trade life cycle — from order placement through execution, confirmation and settlement
- Clearing and settlement — how obligations are computed and discharged, and what happens when they are not
- Risk management — margins, exposure limits, position limits and the systems brokers use to control them
- Client account handling — onboarding, KYC, documentation and the handling of client funds and securities
- Investor grievances and dispute resolution
- The regulatory framework governing broking operations
Why this paper is different
Series VII is the exam about what happens after the trade. Most candidates know how markets work from the front; this paper asks how they work from the back.
Most market certifications are written from the investor's or the trader's point of view. Series VII is written from the operations desk. The questions turn on sequence, responsibility and control: who computes the obligation, who pays whom, what triggers a margin call, what the broker must do when a client defaults.
That has two consequences for preparation.
Market knowledge does not transfer cleanly. A candidate who trades actively, or who has passed Series VIII, knows what a margin is. Series VII asks how margin is collected, monitored and enforced — a different question that the trading view never touches.
Process questions punish vagueness. "Roughly how settlement works" will not separate two options that differ only in which entity is responsible or which step comes first.
The 50% pass mark, and why it is not a reason to relax
Needing 50 out of 100 rather than 60 sounds forgiving, and it is — on paper. But Series VII keeps the 25% negative marking that most SEBI-mandated papers carry. A careless guessing habit can erase the cushion the lower pass mark gives you.
Ten blind guesses on four-option questions will, on average, land two or three right and seven or eight wrong. The wrong ones cost a quarter-mark each. That is roughly a wash in expected value and worse in practice, because exam distractors are designed to look right. Our post on passing marks and negative marking sets out which papers deduct what.
The disciplined approach: answer what you know, attempt where you can eliminate at least one option, and leave the true unknowns blank.
What the questions look like
Series VII questions tend to fall into three shapes, and it helps to recognise them on sight.
Sequence questions ask what happens first, next or last — in settlement, in client onboarding, in handling a default. The options are usually all real steps; only the order is wrong in three of them.
Responsibility questions ask who does something: the broker, the clearing corporation, the exchange, the depository or the client. Distractors swap one entity for another that sounds equally plausible.
Scenario questions describe a situation — a client who has not paid in, a position that breaches a limit, a complaint that has not been resolved — and ask what the broker must do. These reward knowing the rule rather than the general idea.
Knowing which shape you are looking at tells you what to check. On a sequence question, check the order. On a responsibility question, check the entity. That alone eliminates a surprising number of wrong options.
Where candidates lose marks
Settlement mechanics. Candidates know trades settle; fewer can say precisely what happens at each stage, or what changes when a pay-in fails.
Risk management numbers and triggers. Margin types, when each applies and what a breach sets in motion. These are precisely defined, which makes them easy to examine and easy to confuse.
Client money and securities. The rules on how a broker may hold, use and return client assets are a regulatory priority, and the exam reflects that.
Assuming the job is the syllabus. Operations staff know their own firm's process. The exam asks what the regulation requires, and firm practice sometimes goes further or cuts corners. Where they differ, the exam wants the regulation.
How to prepare
Three to four weeks alongside a full-time job is realistic for most candidates:
- Read the workbook once end to end, marking every process with a defined sequence, deadline or responsible party.
- Draw the trade life cycle on one page — order, execution, clearing, settlement — and annotate who does what at each step. Revisit it until you can redraw it from memory.
- Make a risk sheet: every margin and limit type, what it protects against, and what happens on a breach.
- Give client asset handling and grievances a dedicated pass. They are dense with rules and are reliably examined.
- Practise under the clock in the final week, with the 25% penalty applied, so the guessing discipline is rehearsed rather than improvised.
For the general approach to sitting any NISM paper, our top 10 tips to pass in your first attempt applies here too.
We do not currently offer a Series VII mock test
Plainly: we do not sell a mock test for Series VII. The papers we cover are listed on our mock tests page.
The nearest is Series VIII Equity Derivatives, which shares some ground — clearing, settlement and margining of derivative trades. But the overlap is partial, and Series VIII is written from the trading side. It is not a substitute for Series VII practice.
For this exam, work from the official workbook and any practice material whose questions you can confirm are mapped to the current edition. If we add Series VII later, this guide will be updated rather than replaced.
After you pass
The certificate is valid for three years, after which it must be renewed — see validity and renewal. For operations staff in a regulated role, a lapsed certificate is a compliance issue for the employer as well as for you, so diarise the date.
Sitting a paper we do cover? Our mock tests use the real exam interface and timing, with an explained answer for every question and a results table recording each attempt. Free demo before you pay. See our mock tests.
