MANAMA: Bahrain-based AAOIFI to revamp its flagship global Islamic accounting qualification Certified Islamic Professional Accountant (CIPA), thanks to the Waqf Fund sponsorship, according to a statement issued on the behalf of the Waqf Fund.
“A leading consulting firm has been engaged to prepare the revised curriculum. This will be the first major revision of the CIPA curriculum since its launch in September 2006,” it added.
“At that time, it was felt that the market lacked the unique skillset required to audit Islamic financial institutions using AAOIFI accounting standards. More than seven years, and hundreds of CIPA graduates later, there is still a global shortage of the right human resources who combine conventional as well as AAOIFI accounting knowledge, understanding of the underlying Shari’a principles and standards and exposure of practical issues facing Islamic financial institutions. The revised CIPA curriculum attempts to address these requirements. It will also include contemporary accounting and auditing issues that have come up in the last few years especially after the global financial crisis.
“The biggest challenge for the Islamic banking industry today worldwide is the human resource challenge. We need people who are well versed in conventional accounting and auditing, and also understand the Shari’a-related peculiarities of AAOIFI Shari’a and accounting principles. The development path shall insure AAOIFI CIPA program will reach the level of international practices,” Khalid Hamad, Chairman of the Fund Waqf, said.
“The extraordinary pace of change in the accounting and auditing profession in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and continuous addition of new AAOIFI standards as well as revision of old standards require major upgrade of CIPA qualification for the benefit of the industry. We are thankful to the Waqf Fund for sponsoring this important initiative,” Dr. Khaled Fakih, CEO of AAOIFI, added.
AAOIFI is the standard setting body for Islamic financial industry worldwide, which has issued over 88 Shari’a, accounting, auditing and governance standards, as well as a code of ethics. In a number of jurisdictions the AAOIFI standards are either mandatory or adopted voluntarily by Islamic financial institutions.