CAs told to keep pace with technology
Maintaining integrity as well as keeping pace with the advances in technology is the need of the hour for chartered accounts, industry veterans said.
abu dhabi — Maintaining integrity and keeping pace with the advancements in technology such as artificial intelligence and blockchain are the needs of the hour for chartered accounts as the profession undergoes sea change, industry veterans said during the 29th Annual International Seminar of the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India (ICAI) in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
Amarjit Chopra, former president of the ICAI, said since the profession is undergoing changes, certain issues are bound to crop up.
“The confidence of investors and readers in terms of financial statements has gone down. When we qualified, at that time, a document approved by a certified chartered account was bound to be correct; no one questioned it. But now we have started giving too many disclaimers as our definition of disqualification has substantially changed. Unless we change, the confidence will go down further,” Chopra warned during the panel discussion on ‘Future of Accounting Profession’.
“One day, you have one company doing well and the next day it is learnt that they don’t have cash,” he said, adding that though the role of technology is increasing day-byday, the human role can never be ruled out. He stated that the most important issue is integrity.
Michael Armstrong, regional director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales Measa, pointed out during the panel discussion that professionals have to work smarter with the advances in new technologies and AI.
“We shouldn’t be frightened of these new challenges. The world has changed today and continues to change. We, as a chartered account, need to maintain relevance and, at the same time, maintain public trust all time,” he said.
The two-day ICAI Abu Dhabi chapter conference was attended by Shaktikanta Das, former economic affairs and revenue secretary of India; Subhash Mundra, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Dr Anil Khandelwal, former chairman of Bank of Baroda; Brahmavihari Swamiji; Akshar Dham Sanstha; and other delegates.
Armstrong said: “New technologies will revolutionise our industry. I was in Saudi Arabia recently where they will be spending $500 billion to build a city all around AI. When the human population will be 10 billion, [an equal] 10 billion robots are believed to be working along with humans. Similarly, if the IQ of an average person is 100, on the same scale, the robot will have an IQ of 10,000. Therefore, we need to make sure that we have deeper skills. I see a lot of challenges as our profession undergoes massive changes very quickly over the next five years, so we have to ensure how to stay relevant.”
Atul Kumar Gupta, chairman of the board of studies at the ICAI, highlighted that there has to be continuous research with the involvement of technology and new practices being followed, otherwise professionals will become obsolete.
He stated that human relevance will stay as it is the human who is creating those software, and not not the other way around.
“We invested in AI to support human activity of repetitive nature. So with the arrival of AI, blockchian and cloud computing, the job tjat was supposed to be done by chartered accountants is outforced by a computer. Now our role will shift towards conducting more of analysis. The processing or accounting will be done by the AI and the role of professionals will be more of informed analysis. I believe the technology’s role is supportive only, therefore, the human will remain relevant,” Gupta added.
In the recent past, said Thomas Pereira, chief financial officer of Commercial Bank of Dubai, noted that the stand, integrity and judgment of chartered accountant professionals is under strong emphasis.
The two-day summit also saw Chintan Haria, fund manager at ICICI Pru Mutual Fund, dicussing the Indian equities market.
— waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com