PQ news
CARL LYGO It’s time to say farewell – and take on a new challenge In March, I left BPP 20 years, one week and one day after I had joined. In that time I built a law school, a business school, a school of health and a pathway school, and founded a university. It has been an amazing experience. I have really enjoyed working with (and in competition with) many greats of the accountancy profession, who have made a lawyer feel welcome in their sector. I have been fortunate to surround myself at BPP with many talented professionals who shared my passion for high quality education. BPP has led on online professional education, led by Martin Taylor, and helped accountancy firms take advantage of the new apprenticeship levy. This year the university I founded celebrated its 100,000th alumni and I have been able to use a generous scholarship fund to support students from diverse backgrounds to break into the elite professions. I was brought up by a single parent mum in South Yorkshire who was unable to read or write. I was the first in my family to pass an exam, never mind go to university. For me education has always been that important, life-transforming force. So thank you to all those who I have worked with over the years and all the students who placed their trust in BPP. I hope that I have made a difference. I am now concentrating on working in the schools charity sector to give disadvantaged children a better start in life. The best is yet to come! n This is Professor Carl Lygo’s final column for PQ
New AML watchdog created A new watchdog has been set up to help close any loopholes used by criminals to launder their dirty money in the UK. The Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (phew!) – OPBAS to you and me – will sit within the Financial Conduct Authority and should be up and running by the start of 2018. The government wants the
OPBAS to tackle the potential weaknesses in the supervisory system that it feels criminals and terrorists may be trying to exploit. On top of the FCA, HMRC, the Gambling Commission and the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury (!) there are 23 other anti-money laundering supervisory bodies, mostly accountancy and legal trade bodies.
Call us CA CIMA!
CIMA is another accountancy body to change its logo this month. However, unlike the ICAEW (see page 10), CIMA’s change is more fundamental, and just a bit more confusing. CIMA students have received a letter explaining the updating of the brand. It was pointed out that the new ‘bold and iconic’ brand signals that CIMA is now part of one global family with a shared commitment to management and public accounting. That ‘family’ is now racking up the designatory letters. We have CIMA, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), and the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation. You can now add to this with Association, or the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. But what we don’t know is where the CA, which now precedes the CIMA logo, fits in. The trade and registration marks that now feature in the logos also feel very American – CIMA never felt the need for these before.
It is being proposed that the new watchdog will have powers to fine supervisors if money laundering regulations are breached. Another of its tasks will be to simplify the anti-money laundering rules that apply to different industries. OPBAS will be funded through a new fee on professional body AML supervisors and legislated for by the end of the year.
F9 guidance
A warning has gone out to CBE F9 ACCA sitters from the examiner. The December Examiner’s Report highlights that having the use of a spreadsheet does not remove the need to show the build up to, for example, an internal rate of return (IRR) or to show the detail of a cost of equity calculation, nor does having the ability to type an answer remove the need to write professionally with good use of English. In too many cases in December written answers were poorly structured and full of errors. • See page 24 for more
Growing number of young people are falling victims to identity fraud. Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, is particularly concerned with the 34% increase in this sort of crime among the under 21s. It wants to see better education around fraud and financial crime and is urging young people to be vigilant about protecting their personal data. A record 172,919 identity frauds were recorded in 2016, more than in any previous year. However, while the percentage of of young victims (under 21s) jumped, for those in the 21-30 age range there was a drop of 0.19% in identity fraud to 22,572.
Identity fraud on rise
asked how you found the exams – were they easy, OK or hard?
on. If you want to read more fun stories turn to page 34.
date was the £4m it gave Deloitte last November.
PwC keeps Oscars gig While all electronic devices have now been banned backstage at the Oscars, PwC has managed to keep its job. The accountancy firm has even managed to find an additional role on the night! There will be a PwC employee in the control room on Oscars night who will know the winners. It helped that PwC quickly took responsibility for the ‘unacceptable’ mistake early
FRC to review sanctions The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has said it wants to review the fairness and the effectiveness of its sanctions and fines. Announcing the review, the FRC said it needs to ensure the current set-up is adequate to safeguard the public interest and deter wrongdoing. While there is technically no limit to how big a fine it can impose, the largest to
ICAEW the assessor ICAEW has been approved as an assessment organisation for the level 4 accounting trailblazer apprenticeship. This route into the profession is aimed at schoolleavers who are looking at alternative routes to university, as well as graduates from all disciplines and professionals who are looking for an opportunity to change careers and retrain.
Cifas Mike Haley said there are three simple steps to protect yourself online: use strong passwords; download software updates when prompted on your devices; and avoid using public wi-fi for banking and online shopping. He went on: “We all need to take responsibility to secure our mail boxes, shred our important documents like bank statements and utility bills and take sensible precautions online – otherwise we are making ourselves a target for identity fraudsters.”
In brief CIMA study planner a hit The CIMA study planner has been a big hit, with more than 2,500 PQs having signed up when we visited CIMA’s James Wood. Students can now enter their study time and the planner will be able to calculate when they will be ready to sit the exam. Some students may quake at finding out the number of hours of study time they have left, but the planner is just there to be your study buddy! CIMA is also using it to get feedback on the exams, as you will be regularly 12
PQ Magazine May 2017