Take My ICCF @ HEC Paris Exam

What the ICCF Final Exam Actually Covers

The ICCF syllabus is the corporate finance canon as HEC Paris teaches it, organized into the three six-week courses that the exam samples. Financial analysis comes first: reading and restating the income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement, applying the profession's key indicators of financial equilibrium, and carrying a global diagnosis on a real company. The course case study - a questionnaire plus a 500-to-600-word synthesis note on a real firm - counts toward the certificate alongside the exam.

Valuation follows: the direct and indirect approaches, intrinsic and relative methods, how multiples are determined and applied, the cost of capital, and the classic errors that distort a valuation. The closing course turns to investment and financing decisions - net present value, internal rate of return, payback, the approaches to capital structure from the traditional view through Modigliani-Miller and the pecking order, debt structure and covenants, and the corporate financier's tools in sustainable finance.

The exam itself is a single two-hour multiple-choice sitting of 120 questions drawn from that map, sat in the Pearson VUE environment with the TI-30XS-modeled on-screen calculator. The professionals who handle these sittings work the valuation and financing material hardest, because that is where recall of the method turns into judgment about which method the question is really asking for.

Can You Take the ICCF Exam From Home?

Yes - verified per exam, with the layers dated honestly. On 2026-10-19, Pearson's live FIRSTFINANCE registration flow presented both delivery models on the delivery-models step for ICCF @ HEC Paris (exam id 28597): in-person at a test centre, or online with OnVUE. Underneath that per-exam check, Pearson's official OnVUE view-all catalog lists FIRST FINANCE INSTITUTE among the programs that allow testing from home, and the dedicated FIRST FINANCE OnVUE page was live with the program's full rules when re-verified on 2026-10-20.

One nuance worth knowing: the vendor's own ICCF page describes the final exam as sat in a Pearson VUE test center across more than 150 countries - that is program copy, and Pearson's OnVUE surfaces are the delivery channel's own statement. As of 2026-10-20 the FIRSTFINANCE booking flow runs on Pearson's older tree interface, where the exam-details step routes to account sign-in and the delivery-model choice sits inside the Pearson account; the 2026-10-19 both-options observation is exactly the evidence this page cites.

The at-home rules are the standard OnVUE minimums published on the dedicated page: a qualifying Windows or macOS machine, one display, a working webcam with microphone and speaker, at least 6 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, every other application closed, and a digital whiteboard instead of any physical writing material. The ID must be a government-issued photo document whose name matches the booking exactly. Fail the checks on exam day and the sitting can be canceled with the fee forfeited. Exam Assist handles the entire chain: the account, the delivery choice, the system test, and the sitting itself.

What the Sitting Costs - the Honest Version

The published number is a program price, not an exam fee. The vendor's ICCF@HEC Paris page and category pages list the full 19-week online tutored program - courses, case studies, live sessions, and the certification - at EUR 3,990 net. Sibling certificates carry the same EUR 3,990 figure: ICCF2 at 18 weeks, Strategy at 24 weeks, and the ESCP and Dauphine-PSL finance certificates at 18 weeks each. The outlier is the C-SUITE Directeur financier program at EUR 17,900 over twelve months.

The financing routes are published too: ICCF is eligible for France's CPF (fiche RS5542), the vendor takes payment in up to four card installments without fees, employer training plans are supported, and a France Travail route exists with a published reference. The refund policy is blunt: registration fees are not refunded if you abandon the program, while deferral is free with valid sick-leave or maternity proof and otherwise carries partial re-registration fees.

What no official source publishes is a standalone exam fee. Pearson's program page routes scheduling through the Pearson web account, and any exam-level charge confirms inside that signed-in booking path. This page says so plainly instead of quoting third-party figures that are not the vendor's. When Exam Assist handles the sitting, the service fee is a separate line - due only after the agreed result posts.

Where ICCF Sittings Go Wrong

• •The exam is wider than the candidate's day job. A banker who lives in valuation models still faces the full map - financial analysis diagnostics, financing policy, capital-structure theory, and the sustainable-finance tooling - and 120 questions in two hours leaves no time to reconstruct a method from first principles.
• •The case studies get ignored until they bite. The certificate needs a 10/20 average on each of the three case studies and active participation in the courses, weighted 30 percent of the final grade - candidates who treat the program as an exam-only errand discover the weighting math too late.
• •The calculator slows people down. The Pearson environment gives you the on-screen TI-30XS-modeled calculator and nothing else; candidates who rehearsed on a physical financial calculator lose minutes re-learning keystrokes under proctoring.
• •The at-home environment fails check-in. One display, no headphones, the digital whiteboard only, the accepted-ID list matched to the booking name character for character, the system test passed on the same machine and network - OnVUE cancels sittings that miss the minimums and forfeits the fee. Most failed home sittings die before the first question renders.

How the Service Works

What You Get

A confirmed booking against the real exam - ICCF @ HEC Paris, Pearson exam id 28597 - at home or at a center, on a date that protects your program deadline, since the vendor's rule gives you two months after the third course ends.

A sitting handled by a professional who works the ICCF map for a living - financial analysis, valuation methods, and investment and financing decisions - against the vendor's own published format: 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours, 500 out of 800 to clear the exam condition.

The exam condition satisfied at the sitting you booked. Exam Assist handles the exam sitting end to end, and the service fee is due only after the agreed result posts.

Handling It Safely

Every requirement on the dedicated OnVUE page is cleared before exam day: the operating-system floor, the single display, the webcam and audio check, the bandwidth floor, the closed-application rule, and the digital-whiteboard-only discipline. The accepted-ID list is matched to the name on the booking exactly - passport, plastic driver license, national or EU ID card - because an ID mismatch ends the sitting before it begins.

You get the plain version of what the proctor sees and does: the 30-minute early check-in, the ID photos, the 360-degree room scan, the desk rules, and why nobody touches a second screen during the window. Nothing about the day is improvised.

Discretion is architectural. Your Pearson account, your booking confirmation, and your certification record stay under your control, and nothing about the engagement is discussed with third parties.

Sittings Handled