ICAN to Update Professional Examination Syllabus, to Include Financial Crime and more
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) is to include financial crime as part of the subjects to be examined as early as next year if its new professional examination syllabus currently being reviewed is approved.
ICAN President Dame Onome Joy Adewuyi FCA, who dropped the hint last week in a virtual meeting with the executive management of Zenith Bank Plc said the review of professional examination syllabus is now done yearly and that the latest one which would contain some amendments in response to the changing market dynamics was expected to be concluded by the end of the year.
Zenith Bank Group managing Director and Chief executive Officer of Zenith Bank, Mr. Onyeagwu FCA, who led the bank’s team at the meeting said there was need to incorporate cyber crime in ICAN professional syllabus because it is at the heart of the challenges facing businesses at the moment.
He said that the Institute has a lot to do in helping the country deal with financial crime especially by driving various reforms in financial legislation in addition to training and education.
He implored the Institute to tinker with its training programmes to be able to nurture upcoming accountants to deal with issues of the moment in the business space, pointing out that financial crime is a monumental problem to the entire world which affects every business.
The ICAN 56th President added that the Institute’s objectives in the current presidential year include equipping members to make them more knowledgeable and indispensable to employers as well as rethinking and reforming the examination process with the long run objective of migrating to the Computer Based Testing (CBT) system, among others.
She noted that ICAN members in Zenith Bank have been good ambassadors of the Institute and called on the bank to continue to employ more chartered accountants and also increase the frequency of the in-house MCPD (Mandatory Continuing Professional Development) sessions facilitated by ICAN to enable employees meet the yearly points requirements for membership.
The Zenith GMD accepted the President’s proposal that an ICAN Chapter be established in the bank to bring the institute’s activities closer to the hundreds of members in the bank.