This month, our main interview is with Aristotelis Glykis ACCA, CEO of Cypriot start-up TaxApp.cy. Believing that an inquisitive mindset is the key to success, he took over the role of CEO of the company in February, barely a year after joining the company as a tax manager and head of operations. Find out the secrets of his success.
Staying in Europe, we ask what’s next for France’s debt deadlock. While prime minister Sébastien Lecornu is being given a second chance to forge a working coalition, the task is an imposing one. And the recent inability of France to get control of its debt has disconcerted investors. Once regarded as a bastion of stability at the heart of Europe, investors now charge the French government more to borrow than historically more spendthrift peers such as Greece and, recently, Italy. Read more.
We also hear from Odysseas Christodoulou FCCA, president of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus, who writes about how the accounting world is undergoing one of the most significant transitions in its history. International regulation, technological innovation and rising client expectations are reshaping the landscape. Cyprus, as a small but internationally connected economy, experiences these shifts more intensely than larger markets. Read his opinion piece.
As we marked Global Ethics Day on 15 October, we look at the ethics of AI use. A new report addresses these questions, and sets out the urgent need for finance professionals to understand the ethical implications of the use of AI so that they can be sure that the fundamental principles underpinning the profession are consistently applied in the digital age.
A new ACCA report, Internal control over sustainability data, stresses the growing importance of sustainability data, and the need for internal controls around its collection and reporting. Finance and internal audit professionals, as this article highlights, need to rethink their approach when applying the principles of internal control here, and appreciate the different nature of the data involved. The challenge, it adds, is that a system of financially driven internal controls that can be applied to sustainability data does not exist.
A similar finding is highlighted in ACCA research supporting its Climate Tech Readiness Toolkit. Climate tech is now central to risk management, resilience and long-term value creation, we report, but there’s a significant readiness gap, with data being the single biggest barrier to effective sustainability reporting.
Finally, don’t forget to sign up for ACCA’s annual virtual conference, Accounting for the Future. This year’s theme is ‘Trust and innovation in the new era of finance’. Register to attend live from 25-27 November or on demand, and earn up to 21 free CPD units.
