Review: FUNDAMENTALS OF CORPORATE SECRETARIAL PRACTICE (FCSP) – Singapore

If you’re considering the FUNDAMENTALS OF CORPORATE SECRETARIAL PRACTICE (FCSP) course in Singapore, here’s my detailed and honest review based on my recent experience in the Aug 2025 course.

Registering for the Course

You will need to submit your application to a 123formbuilder website (https://form.123formbuilder.com/6747571/fcsp-2025). I found it weird that they are using this url instead of their own domain for the registration.

Note that you will need to pay $773.90 first and submit your proof of payment when registering.

This course was invoiced by Centre for Corporate Management & Development Pte Ltd, not the Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore (CSIS). Not sure what is the relationship between them but I was under the impression that this is an official course provided by CSIS when I signed up.

What the FCSP Course Covers

The course is designed as an introduction to corporate secretarial work in Singapore. It touches on:

Incorporation process
Statutory registers and records
Annual return filing
Duties and responsibilities of the company secretary

While the outline appears comprehensive, the actual delivery is very basic and surface-level.

The course material for each day will be sent to you a few days before each class.

Day 1:
Understanding Business Entities in Singapore
• Types, characteristics & selection of business entities: (sole proprietorship, partnership, LP, LLP & company).
• Salient point on the name of the company, registered office address, home office scheme.
• Resources – legislations, subsidiary legislations, Practice Directions. Pre-Incorporation, Incorporation & PostIncorporation Matters
• Includes procedures, due diligence requirements, documents required & filing with ACRA, requirements on registered filing agent, first directors’ resolutions, share certificates, common seal provisions & creation of secretarial file (including registers).

Day 2:
Directors
Directors / Secretaries / Auditors (Private Company)
Definition of directors, the appointment of a director, in general, role, power, duties and liabilities of the director, resignation, retirement, re- election, removal of director and director’s declaration of interests.
Company Secretary
Definition of company secretary, qualification of company secretary, role, power, duties, and liability of secretary, appointment, resignation and removal of secretary & change of corporate service providers.
Auditors
Auditors of a company, appointment, resignation and removal of auditors. Changes in Particulars of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, Secretaries, and Auditors.

Day 3:
Shares – Allotment / Transfers
• Basic concepts of shares
• Allotment of shares (procedures, documents, filing requirements & issuance of share certificate, registers)
• Shares transfer (procedures, pre-emption rights, documents, calculation & payment of stamp duty, filing requirements, cancellation & issuance of share certificate, registers)

Meetings
• Types of meetings (Board of Directors, Members, Statutory)
• Type of resolutions (ordinary/special)
• Corporate Representative concept
• Focus on Annual General Meeting (requirements, extension of time, penalties),
drafting of AGM documents for different structures & filing obligations i.e. Annual Return with / without XBRL

Financial Reporting – Financial Statement
• Overview of the requirements to prepare financial statements & its contents, audit exemption & dividends.
Others
• Drafting of simple resolutions is included in the relevant topics.

How the Trainer Delivers the Content

A large portion of the class involves the trainer showing content and videos from the ACRA website or ACRA's youtube channel (acra.gov.sg). While these are official resources, they are freely available online to anyone.

Expect up to 2-4 mini 10 minutes break and a one-hour lunch at 1pm.

In some cases, the materials shown during the course were outdated. When this was pointed out, the trainer explained it as being due to the “constant updates” of regulations. While it’s true that corporate compliance rules change periodically, it was disappointing to see paid course material relying on older versions without updated explanations.

Expect quite a few spelling mistakes and typos and some outdated text which might suggest they don't review their materials frequently.

Day 1: About 3 days before the course starts, you will receive an email on the course materials. The first hour is spent introducing yourself, profession and why you are attending the course. This feels like a complete waste of time when the trainers or organisers could have asked that in the registration form. Not sure what is the intention of doing this.
The trainers will answer or address all your questions but most of the time she will say it will be discussed in a later module which is fair. I hope the attendees asking the questions remember to ask the questions again during the appropriate modules.

A lot of the ACRA videos and materials are shown which you can find online if you spend a bit of time googling. You can probably finish reading them within 3 hours instead of a one day 9.30am to 5pm class.

In the section on Consitution and Common Seal, there was a discussion that the Model Constitution requires the use of common seal by default although it is no longer legally required. Trainer also mentioned that she will use her own customised constitution whenh incorporating. In my opinion, she should have provided a few samples for the attendees to use especially one with the removal of the common seal requirement.

At 4.30pm, she decided to start plugging some of the CSIS content until 5pm and put off some of the items on the schedules that were supposed to be completed on Day 1 for next week (the Register of Registrable Controllers, Register of Nominee Shareholder and Register of Nominee Directors).

Day 2: We covered the Register of Registrable Controllers, Register of Nominee Shareholder and Register of Nominee Directors which were left over from the previous week until the 1pm lunch break. We also covered Module 2 which is on the definition, requirements, appointment, removal of directors and company secretary. These content are straightforward and relatively simple so you can read from ACRA's website and Companies Act if you want. We covered Module 3 allotment and issuance of shares for about 2 hours. She did not start on second part of Module 3 which is the transfer of shares because the time was around 4.30pm when she completed the allotment and issuance of shares and Q&A. Again, she decided to promote a course she is teaching and other advertising. Note that usually the attendance is at the end of the class so you are kind of forced to listen and waste your life away.

Can You Learn the Same Content for Free?

Yes. Almost everything in the FUNDAMENTALS OF CORPORATE SECRETARIAL PRACTICE (FCSP) can be learned by reading the ACRA website and other free online resources. The main difference is that the course puts this information into a classroom setting with some explanations, but without much depth or additional insider knowledge.

Who Will Benefit Most

The FCSP course is best suited for:

Complete beginners who have no prior exposure to corporate secretarial work.
Learners who prefer guided, step-by-step teaching in a live class setting.

If you already have some understanding of the subject or are comfortable learning from official sources, this course will likely feel redundant and waste of time and money.

Is the FCSP Course Worth $779.30?

In my opinion, no — not for most people. At $779.30, it’s a high price for basic information that you can freely access from ACRA. The outdated material and reliance on showing the ACRA site during class further reduce its value.
If you are a Corporate Service Provider or has some background on Companies' Act, you should be able to learn more and faster on your own, and for free. And save 3 days of your life. What is your objective for attending this course? If you just want a certificate (I am not sure if there is any value to their certificate), then this course is ok.

Final Verdict

Good for: Total beginners who want a structured, guided introduction in person. There will be a certificate.
Not worth it for: Anyone who can self-learn online or already understands basic compliance requirements.
Overall: Clear explanations but minimal depth, reliance on public content, and outdated examples. Better to save your money unless you really need the classroom environment where someone gather the free resources and read it to you.