Don’t see any shortage of auditors in fast growing Indian economy, says ICAI President Aniket Talati

CA Institute does not see any demand-supply mismatch for auditors in the foreseeable future even as Indian economy continues to grow at a fast clip, its President Aniket Sunil Talati has said.

“With the growth in the economy and increased corporatisation, a lot of our members are wanting to join industry because of the security it offers. 

Our younger members are preferring industry. But I don’t see a shortage in practising CAs even as economy continues to grow in robust way”, Talati said in the capital.

India is now the fastest growing large economy in the world and is poised to record growth of about 7 per cent this fiscal.

Talati, who assumed charge at the helm of ICAI in mid-February this year, said that hundreds of newly minted chartered accountants opt for certificate of practice every year and the ICAI is also regularly looking at the numbers on an overall basis.

He was responding to a query on perception in certain quarters about impending shortage of auditors in Indian economy and also a possible demand supply mismatch given the fear among many of existing auditors to take up risky audits in an environment where regulators across the world are swift with punitive action on erring auditors.

Meanwhile, asked about the growing popularity of artificial intelligence based tools and how it could impact audit profession, Talati asserted that “future (of audit profession) is bright in AI world”.

GLOBAL HUB 

Talati highlighted that India is now emerging as a global hub of accounting outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing. “Today India is the preferred choice for all international accounting that gets outsourced from Canada, US and Australia. Large number of book keeping services are being done out of India. Even financial and advisory services are done out of India and there is huge potential there”, he added.

India’s accounting services exports grew whopping 29-30 per cent in 2022-23, Talati added. “What was a delight for us to see was that traditionally software was predominant contributor. But in 2022-23, accounting services exports did well”

To establish its leadership in this space, where thousands of chartered accountants are working, ICAI will this November organise its first ever Global Professional Accountants Convention (GLOPAC) at Gujarat, Talati added.

AUDIT QUALITY 

Asked about perception of waning public confidence in auditors following several corporate failures in recent years, Talati said there are lot of facets to audit quality. “What audit is intended to do needs to be understood. One needs to Clearly understand that audit is being done to give reasonable assurance that financial statements are free from material misstatements. 

Audit was never intended to be an adventure in the form of an investigation where you unearth and go there with perception of a fraud finder and only unearth frauds”, he said.

It would not be right in today’s times to expect a statutory auditor to look at 100 per cent of invoices, vouchers and transactions and this perception of audit has to be clearly understood, he added.

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