In November 2018, CPA Australia co-hosted the World Congress of Accountants (WCOA) 2018 alongside Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

Held every four years, WCOA is the most significant gathering of the accounting profession and brought the world’s leading accounting and finance experts to Australia. The event attracted close to 6000 delegates, including more than 1000 CPA Australia members. Delegates discussed the major issues affecting the future of the accounting profession and heard from an impressive line-up of keynote speakers.

View CPA Australia’s coverage of WCOA

CPA Australia has signed an agreement with the RMIT College of Business Blockchain Innovation Hub to explore opportunities for collaboration in education and research on blockchain. Blockchain is a major topic of interest that will affect the future of the accounting and audit profession. Watch INTHEBLACK.com’s award-winning  blockchain explainer video.

CPA Australia's Beijing office hosted The era of transformation – empowering the future: 2019 CPA Australia Economic Trends and Innovation Forum at Dalian Castle Hotel on 31 May 2019. Topics included digital transformation, market outlook, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence in the profession.

CPA Australia conducted its tenth annual Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey (PDF). The survey measures business sentiment, technology uptake and access to finance across 10 markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

During May 2019, CPA Australia jointly held an International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) workshop for accounting and finance professionals with Lao Securities Commission in Vientiane, Laos, to discuss the benefits of adopting IFRS.

Workshops held in Hanoi in August to support Vietnam’s transition to adopting IFRS 15: Revenue from contracts with customers, and IFRS 16: Leases.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain

The Northern Territory office co-hosted an event with the Australian Computer Society that looked at cryptocurrencies and blockchain and explored the importance of being aware of the impact these technologies will have on accounting and finance.

CPA Australia published a detailed policy statement setting out the role accounting can play in formulating environmentally sensitive business and economic policy.

Fintech Symposium
Hosted Fintech Symposium in Melbourne in conjunction with RMIT College of Business attended by academics, students and industry experts. Topics included, The future of accounting, automation, digital payment solutions, accounting software, Blockchain and big data.

Congress 2019 – Business as Unusual
CPA Australia’s flagship event running in 13 locations across 7 countries with 8000+ delegates & 275+ speakers and presenters. This year’s theme is Business as Unusual exploring key topics The Future of Digital Money and Accounting for the Robots.

CPA Virtual Congress 2020 will be a worldwide online event that will connect our global community over three days from 10-12 November. More details to follow. The move to an online event is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

CPA Australia member research shows that future career development is a top priority for members.

CPA Australia has partnered with Burning Glass Technologies, the world’s leading provider of real-time labour market data, to develop My Career Navigator - an online tool to help members understand the skills employers are looking for and to shape their career pathway.

My Career Navigator launched in November 2019.

CPA Australia has developed a new future-fit Capability Framework that will act as a benchmark against which ASA and full members’ competencies are assessed and measured. It will demonstrate the high-quality certification that CPA members achieve, particularly in competencies around digital and data.

Existing financial advisers have additional time to meet the qualification and examination requirements set by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA).

Existing advisers must complete the FASEA exam by 1 January 2022 (one additional year) and meet FASEA's qualification requirements by 1 January 2026 (two additional years). These changes will not apply to new advisers registered after 1 January 2019.

See 4.1 – improve CPD offering