NISM Series V-C is organised into ten units rather than chapters, and — unlike V-A, V-B or V-D — the workbook publishes no weightage table. What follows is the syllabus with the concentration of questions we see in banks, which is the best available guide to where the marks are.
The ten units
| Unit | Share of bank | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Investor Services | ~19% | NFO, open-end, closed-end and ETF transactions; cut-off times; systematic plans; nomination, pledge, transmission |
| Investment Theory and Building Blocks | ~15% | Asset allocation and diversification; equity and fixed income strategies; duration; derivatives in a fund |
| Scheme Evaluation | ~12% | Sharpe, Treynor, alpha, tracking error; benchmarks; assessing manager and AMC |
| Valuation of Securities and Accounting | ~11% | Valuing equity, debt, derivatives and real estate in a scheme; NAV accounting |
| Legal and Regulatory Environment | ~11% | REIT and InvIT regulation; investment restrictions; changes in fund structure |
| Investment Strategies and Fund Categories | ~9% | Equity, debt, hybrid and solution-oriented schemes; FoFs; infrastructure debt and real estate funds |
| Competitive Landscape | ~9% | REITs, InvITs, venture capital, private equity, international funds, PMS, AIFs |
| Taxation | ~7% | Scheme- and investor-level tax; set-off of losses; tax on competing products |
| Ethics and Investor Protection | ~5% | AMFI code, mis-selling, conflicts, grievance redressal |
| Case Studies | ~3% | Worked numerical cases in the style of the 2-mark section |
The order to study
First, the three heaviest. Investor Services, Investment Theory, Scheme Evaluation — nearly half the questions. Investor Services is the most learnable of the three; Scheme Evaluation is the most numerical and the most likely to appear as a 2-mark question.
Second, the technical pair. Valuation and Accounting, and the Legal and Regulatory Environment. This is where V-C stops being "V-A but harder" and becomes a different exam: how an unlisted share is valued when there is no audited balance sheet (at zero, after nine months), how a bond with a put option is valued (at the higher of value-to-maturity and value-to-put), which changes to a scheme need a transparent process and an exit window.
Third, the landscape and categories. The competitive landscape unit is mostly memorisation of structures and thresholds: PMS from Rs 50 lakh, AIFs from Rs 1 crore in three categories, REITs and InvITs with their lot sizes and payout rules. Full unit guide.
Last, taxation and ethics — small, predictable, and the ethics unit is common sense written down.
What the 2-mark questions draw on
The 25 two-mark questions are half the marks, and they come disproportionately from four units: Scheme Evaluation (ratios), Valuation and Accounting (NAV arithmetic), Investor Services (units bought and redeemed, loads, SWP arithmetic) and the Case Studies unit (returns, currency effects, capital gains). If you can do the calculations in the Sharpe/Treynor/alpha guide cold, you are most of the way there.
The unit-page links
- Investment Theory and Building Blocks
- Investment Strategies and Fund Categories
- Competitive Landscape
- Valuation and Accounting
- Taxation
- Investor Services
- Scheme Evaluation
- Legal and Regulatory Environment
- Ethics and Investor Protection
- Case Studies
Study in that order of weight, do each unit's practice set immediately after reading it, and move to 75-question timed papers once the top five units are solid.