Category: FRM

Current Issues carries only 10 percent of the FRM Part 2 exam. It is also, year after year, the section candidates leave until last and study from outdated notes.

That is a mistake in any year. In 2026 it is an expensive one, because the reading list has rotated substantially and because the readings themselves are short, non quantitative and unusually easy to score on.

Here is the official 2026 list, taken from GARP’s Required Readings page, followed by what it signals and how to study it.

The official 2026 FRM Current Issues readings

Artificial intelligence

Two readings, which is worth pausing on.

• IMF, Advances in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Capital Markets Activities, Global Financial Stability Report, October 2024
• Financial Stability Board, The Financial Stability Implications of Artificial Intelligence, November 2024

Private credit

• Bank for International Settlements, The Global Drivers of Private Credit, February 2025

Geopolitical risk

• IMF, Global Financial Stability Report, April 2025, Chapter 2

Risk of rising government debt

• BIS Annual Economic Report, Section 2, Monetary and fiscal policy: safeguarding stability and trust

Cryptocurrency and digital assets

Also two readings.

• IMF, Regulating the Crypto Ecosystem: The Case of Unbacked Crypto Assets
• IMF Fintech Note, Tokenization and Financial Market Inefficiencies, January 2025

Digital resilience

• Digital Resilience and Financial Stability: The Quest for Policy Tools in the Financial Sector

What is missing from that list is the real story

Read the list again and notice what is not on it.

There is no reading on traditional credit underwriting. Nothing on classic market risk measurement. No bank capital adequacy. No deposit franchise management.

Current Issues is the section GARP uses to test emerging themes before deciding whether they become permanent syllabus. It is, in effect, GARP’s public statement about where risk management is heading. And for 2026 that statement is almost entirely about technology, private markets, sovereign balance sheets and geopolitics.

Two readings on AI is a deliberate signal

GARP did not give artificial intelligence one reading. It gave it two, sourced from the IMF and the Financial Stability Board, which are the two bodies whose job is to worry about systemic risk.

The message is that AI model governance is no longer a specialist role sitting off to one side of the risk function. It is core examinable knowledge for anyone certifying as a risk professional. If you have been treating AI as somebody else’s problem, the syllabus has now disagreed with you in writing.

Private credit and tokenization sit alongside it

The other theme running through the list is assets that are large, growing quickly, and priced without a liquid observable market. Private credit. Tokenized instruments. Unbacked crypto assets.

Put the two themes together and you get a fairly precise description of the risk manager GARP wants to certify. Someone who can challenge a machine learning model in a governance forum, then turn around and value an exposure that has no market price. Those responsibilities used to sit in different departments.

If you are taking the FRM as a career move rather than as a certificate, that is the most useful thing on this page.

FRM Part 2 exam weights for 2026

The subject weights are unchanged.

Subject	Weight
Market Risk Measurement and Management	20%
Credit Risk Measurement and Management	20%
Operational Risk and Resilience	20%
Liquidity and Treasury Risk Measurement and Management	15%
Risk Management and Investment Management	15%
Current Issues in Financial Markets	10%

So keep your time split across subjects as it was. What changes is what you study inside Current Issues.

How to actually study Current Issues

Build fresh notes every year, without exception. This is the one section where reusing last year’s material is close to worthless. The list rotates annually by design.

Read the primary sources. These are IMF, BIS and FSB publications, not textbook chapters. They are readable, they are free, and GARP links to every one of them from its Required Readings page. Most candidates read a summary of a summary and lose the specific detail the questions are built on.

Study it early, then revisit twice. Current Issues rewards recency, so a common approach is to leave it to the end. The better approach is to read it early so the concepts connect to the rest of the syllabus, then do two short revision passes.

Expect qualitative questions. There is very little maths here. Questions test whether you understood the argument, the transmission channel, and the policy concern. That is why it is high scoring per hour, and why skipping it is such a poor trade.

Test whether your preparation is current

The fastest way to find out whether you are studying the right material is to sit a practice set built to the 2026 list.

Our FRM Part 2 question bank covers all six topics, with 10 sets per topic and 4,400 questions in total. Set 1 of every topic is free, with no payment required.

Start with the free Current Issues practice set. If you score above 70 percent, your preparation is current. If you do not, you have identified your gap while there is still time to close it.

You may also want to check the free Investment Management set, since private credit and private markets appear across both sections, and the free Market Risk set to confirm your quantitative work is holding up.

Frequently asked questions

What are the FRM Part 2 Current Issues topics for 2026?

Artificial intelligence with two readings from the IMF and the Financial Stability Board, private credit from the BIS, geopolitical risk from the IMF Global Financial Stability Report, the risk of rising government debt from the BIS Annual Economic Report, cryptocurrency and digital assets with two IMF readings including tokenization, and digital resilience.

How much is Current Issues worth in FRM Part 2?

Ten percent of the exam. With 80 questions on the paper, that is roughly 8 questions.

Can I reuse last year’s Current Issues notes?

No. The reading list is refreshed annually and 2026 has rotated substantially. Build fresh notes from the current official list each year.

Is Current Issues worth studying properly if it is only 10 percent?

Yes. The readings are short and qualitative, which makes them among the highest scoring sections per hour of study on the entire paper. It is usually a better use of a spare weekend than another pass through material you already know.

Where can I find the official FRM readings?

GARP publishes the required readings, with direct links to each source document, on its Required Readings page at garp.org.

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Always confirm the exact reading list and learning objectives on garp.org before finalising your study plan. Reading list details in this article reflect GARP’s published Required Readings page at the time of writing. GARP does not endorse, promote, review or warrant the accuracy of the products or services offered by Finance Certification Prep.

Planning to do the FRM? Here is what most candidates do not realise until they are already deep into Part 1. FRM Part 1 and Part 2 are fundamentally different exams — in format, depth, and the way you need to prepare.

FRM Part 1 — The Foundation

• Format: 100 multiple-choice questions in 4 hours
• Pass rate: approximately 40–45%
• Study hours recommended: 200–275 hours
• Core topics: Quantitative Analysis, Financial Markets & Products, Valuation & Risk Models, Foundations of Risk Management

What it tests: Broad conceptual knowledge across risk disciplines. You need to know a lot of areas — but at foundational depth. The challenge is breadth and time management — 100 questions in 4 hours means 2.4 minutes per question.

FRM Part 2 — The Application

• Format: 80 multiple-choice questions in 4 hours
• Pass rate: approximately 50–55%
• Study hours recommended: 200–250 hours
• Core topics: Market Risk, Credit Risk, Operational Risk, Liquidity Risk, Risk Management in Investment Management, Current Issues in Financial Markets

What it tests: Deeper application of risk frameworks to real-world scenarios. Fewer questions but harder concepts — each question demands more reasoning, not just recall. Current Issues changes every year — this section alone requires fresh study for every sitting.

Key Differences That Change How You Prepare

Breadth vs Depth

Part 1 demands wide coverage. Part 2 demands analytical depth. Study materials that worked for Part 1 are often too surface-level for Part 2.

Calculation Intensity

Part 1 has more formula-heavy questions. Part 2 has more conceptual and scenario-based questions — reading comprehension matters as much as calculation.

Current Issues Section (Part 2 Only)

GARP updates this every year with new papers. Candidates who ignore it consistently underperform. Allocate at least 20–25 hours specifically to this section.

Mock Test Strategy by Part

Part 1: Start mocks topic-by-topic. Full mocks in the final 4 weeks.

Part 2: Full scenario mocks from the beginning — the questions reward integrated thinking, not topic silos.

Most candidates who pass Part 1 comfortably underestimate Part 2. The pass rate is higher — but the difficulty is different, not easier.

Practice FRM Part 1 and Part 2 mock tests: https://financecertificationprep.in

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This post was researched and written by an AI agent.