Interview: Mark Billington, ICAEW

And to my knowledge there are Malaysians who are qualified members of IFAC bodies such as the CPAs or the national regulatory examining bodies of their own countries who are also IFAC members. What plans do the ICAEW has for these category?

If you were to asked me, the ICAEW could at least make a bold step into signing more MRAs with IFAC member bodies. Here, I would only recommend the highly recognised ones such as the CPA of USA, Ireland, China, Japan, etc and the MRA should be one of without conditions. Let's see how many would sign up for ACA with this MRA signed.

Goodluck, Billington, but there must be more homework done besides what I said above.

As far as I know, the ACA is a well known qualfication in Malaysia, well accepted by professional bodies as well as employers in the commercial and audit firms.

Because ICAEW tried to established itself sometime back in Malaysia by allowing a handful accounting firms to train its staff to become ACAs, I wonder what happened to this once establishment? How come it like died down?

The most popular accounting qualification in Malaysia is still the ACCA, followed by the CIMA. The MICPA and the ACA are still two of the very well accepted qualifications despite its smaller numbers.

Of late, the ACA made another come back by including commercial firms into its training scheme. This made me check with a trainee with one such commercial firms. I was told that the ACA does not run the local variants, ie Malaysian Tax and Malaysian Law and this trainee's commercial firm only accept those with 1st class honour to write the ACA programme.

I believe when you are in Rome, you do what the Romans does, and when you are in Malaysia do you still try to be UK orientated? It would be a square one thought for an ACA graduate who wish to embark on a career in Malaysian Corporate Tax. This is one good advice for the ICAEW.

The ACCA already has its local variants long ago, for your information. So are others like the ICSA and the AIA. The AIA, in fact, was the earliest to have local variants in the world but certainly it didn't made its mark like the ACCA did.

In Malaysia, I would beg to differ that the ICAEW need to "broaden its awaremess of what they are doing". Practically, everyone knew what the ICAEW stands for and prestigious it is, but there may be a little confusion to some who may be mixed-up with the two designates - ACCA and ACA. They thought both are the same.

But it is undeniably true that big employers (not just some, in fact I would say all) out there, all of whom recognises the ICAEW very well.

If the ICAEW were to plan its global engagement in the SOuth East Asia region, then it ought to consider more factors than just the few mentioned. Fostering good ties with the big 4 is one of the many ways, but its initial impact on commercial firms by allowing its staff to train in ACA is not enough, it should be extended to all in commercial firms like the ACCA did. No restrictions should be imposed. Local variants matters much too.

It all sounds very grand, goodness knows how much it's costing in time and money. It's just an idea but what about getting the ICAEW regional structure in the UK working properly and actually benefiting the grass roots membership here first.

So the English and Welsh accountants are to attempt to build a second Empire.

Whether it will grow to be as large and all encompassing as the first British Empire we will wait to see.

Better late than never. They have an awful lot of catching up to do if they hope to compete with some of their Chartered competitors who already have a significant presence in the Asia-Pacific region, most notably the ACCA.