The world today is operating at novel dynamics and globalisation has unfolded new vistas of opportunities for all professionals. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is recognised for its contribution in the fields of education, professional development, maintenance of high accounting, auditing and ethical standards. The institute has been playing a proactive role in formulation and implementation of technical standards on accounting. The ICAI has five regional offices and 147 branches all across the country and with overseas chapters functioning in 23 important jurisdictions globally.

Through its research arm, ICAI Accounting Research Foundation has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Employee&’s Provident Fund Organisation. As per the understanding, ICAI ARF will undertake a Pilot Study Project to support its initiative to migrate to Accrual Based Accounting System. The project offers a unique opening to study the complex aspects of the sovereign fund from a professional perspective. The accrual accounting system will further allow a financial management and framework aligned to the international standards. To establish the footprints and marks of excellence across the globe, the 24th Overseas Chapter was inaugurated in Vancouver in British Columbia in Canada, which has a sizeable number of Indian accounting professionals working for the growth of the region.

ICAI has organised a three day International Conference on the theme “Accountancy Profession: Building Global Competitiveness, Accelerating Growth” on 29 to31 January at Bengaluru. The conference was spread into 11 technical sessions and panel discussions. It also witnessed parallel sessions on women and young members. The ICAI is planning to hold chain seminars throughout the country with a view to develop the necessary skills and knowledge for smooth and effective implementation.

In the wake of growing business complexities, knowledge requirements, regulatory and legal changes and client expectations, specialists will be preferred over generalists in future. Taking due note of the emerging scenario, ICAI had been offering 14 various certificate courses for its members. To keep up the momentum, recently four more courses were launched to help members build new skill sets. These include corporate social responsibility, financial markets and securities laws, wealth management and financial planning, and information systems security. These aim to make the members specialise in emerging new-age domains and tap the vast career opportunities in the respective fields.

The three professional institutes like the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Institute of Company Secretaries of India and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India have taken a joint initiative and developed a portal as “Independent Directors Repository”. It is now operational to facilitate the individuals who are eligible and willing to act as independent directors.

To provide the women members a medium through which they can explore suitable opportunities, ICAI had launched a flexi-working portal them. This will not only serve the interest of women members but also enable firms and industry to tap talent pool, which might not be accessible otherwise in normal course.

The campus placement programme provides an opportunity to the employers to interact with newly qualified chartered accountants to peruse their particulars and recruit the suitable candidate in their organisations. The programme is organised twice in a year in the months of February to March and August to September. With a vision that accountancy profession and education should constantly go hand in hand with global academic, technological and economic advancements, new scheme for education and training is ready for final consideration. The whole syllabus has been minutely scrutinised and changes have been proposed to make the course more practical in approach to meet the requirements of today&’s competitive market. The cloud campus a next generation interactive learning management system was set up with an objective to provide quality education at the doorsteps, enabling them to learn anytime and from anywhere at the click of a button and that too free of cost.

For the convenience of the students, chartered accountants examinations are being extended to four new centers at Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, Dhule, Maharashtra and Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. The digital library was launched with a comprehensive repository of various digital publications, ebooks, journals, etc. It would offer online resources subscribed to members to help and assist in higher education and professional development.