The Hindu Business Line : Chartering a foreign course

INDIA'S CHARTERED ACCOUNTANCY course is raring to go places. If a proposal of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India lying with the Department of Company Affairs is cleared, the Institute will be able to take on overseas students and also allow them to do articleship under recognised accountants practising in those countries. This means a student in Dubai doing apprenticeship as per Indian norms with a CPA firm there, or a British accounting outfit having a branch in South Africa taking up articled clerks who prepare for exams conducted by the Indian accounting body. As things stand, these are not permitted by CA regulations. The two components of the chartered accountancy course — exams and practical training — are both confined to the country's borders, but for a couple of exam centres abroad. As such CA-aspirants have to complete the practical training, or articleship, with a qualified member of the Institute and the firm has to be in India. Thus, in one stroke, the suggestion in the works aims to break the shackles of both geography and nationality. No doubt a daring thought that can boost the ICAI's image.

On the demand side, it is understood that the Institute is looking at a market of aspiring NRI children and foreigners, too, in countries that do not have recognised institutes for accountancy, who can be weaned away from more expensive education elsewhere. Stoking a demand should not be a problem if the Institute does its marketing strategically, by benchmarking the Indian CA course against competing lines abroad. A differential fee can easily enrich the ICAI if the numbers are good enough, and if logistics is not a problem the Institute can conduct exams in more offshore centres than it does now. Again, on the demand side, it may not be out of place to consider the relevance of Indian law inputs for such students, though we may agree that Indian accounting pronouncements would tend to be in sync with international standards.

Talking of supply, there are already a few thousand Indian CAs abroad, many of them working for foreign accounting firms. But the supply of apprenticeship slots coming up in a different country may also be from an accountant who not necessarily owes his allegiance to the Indian Institute. Thus, there is much homework to be done in the ICAI before recognising the foreign accountant as being eligible to train, so that there is no clash with the professional's code of conduct. Though there is no great marginal cost for the ICAI to implement the relaxation as planned, there may be a clamour from Indian CAs that they be allowed to train for foreign accounting courses. There is also a lobby that argues for including Indian corporates and businesses as venues for articleship — a point that is being looked into by the Institute through its periodical review. A different question is if, as the Institute perceives, these foreign students decide to settle in India, after completing the CA course offshore, would there be a stigma attached to them: That they lack practical exposure to corporate or tax laws of the country.

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