ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is adding a new Global Business Services (GBS) Certificate in April 2022 to its already extensive certificate portfolio.

ACCA Middle East has seen significant uptake of its professional certificates with over 6,000 individual certificates being issued since 2020.

This equates to over 113,000 study hours along with 113,000 accredited CPD hours awarded (1 CPD hour for 1 hour studied). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked highest for certificate sales, closely followed by the UAE.

ACCA’s Certificate in International Finance Reporting (Cert IFR) ranked highest attributing to 62% of overall certificates sold, closely followed by Certificate in International Public Sector Accounting (Cert IPSAS) in both English and Arabic and the Certificate in International Auditing (Cert IA).

Malek Sarieddine, regional development manager for ACCA Middle East, comments: ‘Cert IFR has proven popular due to market adoption of IFR over the past few years within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Those who produce and use financial statements need to understand IFRS, or may need formal recognition for existing skills and knowledge. ACCA’s Cert IFR is a fast, cost-effective, efficient and on-demand solution to meet these needs.’

While the conversion to IPSAS by governments including, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Abu Dhabi & Dubai) has led to a sharp increase in cert IPSAS sales across these markets, in additional to cert IPSAS being one of the few public sector certifications available in both English and Arabic.

In addition, many organisations across the region mandate their accounting and finance professionals remain well versed in international accounting standards which is why Cert IA ranks fourth best seller and is the certificate of choice.

These statistics clearly demonstrate the quality content and learning outcomes of these certificates and why leading accounting firms across the region choose ACCA certificates as the training platform of choice.

The global business services, shared services and outsourcing industry is one of the fastest growing worldwide and is a key component of many finance transformation programmes.

This Certificate has been developed in consultation with over 50 major employers across the world, and is designed to develop the technical skills, industry knowledge, business acumen and analytical capabilities needed to add value to business’ finance functions and joins a robust portfolio of certificates including Data Analytics, Fin Tech, and Digital innovation in finance.

Fazeela Gopalani says: ‘ACCA does the hard work for businesses. We research ever-changing industry and learner needs, source and design industry-relevant courses and certificates, then offer them on our world-class LMS to ensure superior learning experience for our partners, catering to their unique learning and talent development needs.’

‘Our new GBS certificate will give finance talent working in the global shared services sector the skills and expertise they need to perform successfully in a GBS organisation. It will introduce them to the business model of shared services and outsourcing and develop the technical skills, industry knowledge, business acumen and analytical capabilities needed to add value across the entire delivery model.’

‘It is delivered through ACCA Learning, our online learning platform offering future-focussed continuous learning solutions for finance professionals.’

There are five key modules included, which are delivered over 30 hours of interactive online learning and employees will:

• discover the principles and practice that define the best shared services teams
• gain the skills and expertise to design better processes and manage change
• learn how to harness innovative tech
• develop key business skills needed in a GBS environment

Learners will receive a recognised qualification – the Certificate in Global Business Services upon successful completion of the course.