Maiki Lynch: Hey, there. I'm Maiki Lynch and I'm an accountant. And
Maiki Lynch: in this series from ACCA, I've been sitting down with
Maiki Lynch: other accountants and people who work in finance to hear
Maiki Lynch: about their journeys in the world of work, and bust
Maiki Lynch: some common myths about these careers along the way. This
Maiki Lynch: week is our final episode, and it's a rather special
Maiki Lynch: one because we are going to be squaring up one
Maiki Lynch: of the biggest questions facing not just those working in
Maiki Lynch: accounting and finance, but has the potential to change almost
Maiki Lynch: every area of our lives. That's right, it's artificial intelligence.
Maiki Lynch: These days it seems like AI is always in the news,
Maiki Lynch: whether it's ChatGPT helping students write essays, or big manufacturing
Maiki Lynch: companies changing their processes. But is AI going to have a big role to play in
Maiki Lynch: the future of finance? Is it going to help or
Maiki Lynch: be a hindrance? And what could it mean for careers
Maiki Lynch: in accountancy? Let's find out. This is By All Accounts.
Maiki Lynch: Depending on how it's discussed, the changes AI may bring
Maiki Lynch: to our lives can feel either like a golden opportunity
Maiki Lynch: or a looming threat. So when it came to careers
Maiki Lynch: in accounting and finance, I've gone to the experts. First
Maiki Lynch: up I have ACCA's own Head of Technology Research, Alistair Brisbourne,
Maiki Lynch: who's been digging into what AI means for the future
Maiki Lynch: of accountancy. Hello, Alistair.
Alistair Brisbourne: Hello, Maiki.
Maiki Lynch: And also Imtiaz Ahmad. Imtiaz qualified as an accountant back
Maiki Lynch: in 2007 and has worked in both the private and
Maiki Lynch: public sectors, all the way from junior roles to top
Maiki Lynch: executive levels. He's here to share his views on how
Maiki Lynch: the industry has changed over the years and is continuing
Maiki Lynch: to change. Hello, Imtiaz.
Imtiaz Ahmad: Hi.
Maiki Lynch: Welcome. So Alistair, I'm going to come to you first.
Maiki Lynch: I know AI is everywhere these days, but it can
Maiki Lynch: feel a little bit of a black box to some.
Maiki Lynch: Can you give me a really straightforward explanation as to
Maiki Lynch: what AI is?
Alistair Brisbourne: Well, that's a challenge. Basically, AI is about using a
Alistair Brisbourne: computer, the strengths of computers, to do things that used
Alistair Brisbourne: to be done by human intelligence. I think something that
Alistair Brisbourne: we're also aware of that's accessible to all of us
Alistair Brisbourne: is thinking about smart playlists. Whether you're using Spotify or
Alistair Brisbourne: Apple Music, these playlists, they know what music you like
Alistair Brisbourne: and they know why you like it because they're assessing
Alistair Brisbourne: the music that you're listening to, they're assessing the music
Alistair Brisbourne: that other people listen to, in order to make suggestions
Alistair Brisbourne: as to other songs that you might like. So what
Alistair Brisbourne: it's doing is there's this algorithm that's learning from data, in
Alistair Brisbourne: this case your music choices, and then it's making suggestions
Alistair Brisbourne: as to other songs you might like. And that applies
Alistair Brisbourne: to basically all forms of artificial intelligence. It's as simple
Alistair Brisbourne: as a machine understanding patterns within data. And so as
Alistair Brisbourne: you say, it's pervasive in our lives, whether it's the
Alistair Brisbourne: mapping systems we use to get here today to understand
Alistair Brisbourne: traffic flow information, to understand route guidance, all this is
Alistair Brisbourne: infused with AI. Or the quirky questions we ask our
Alistair Brisbourne: Siri and Alexa and Google assistants, that's all AI- based.
Alistair Brisbourne: Or we had the Beatles release a song last year,
Alistair Brisbourne: for example, thanks to a machine learning tool that was
Alistair Brisbourne: able to extract data from an old hissy tape and
Alistair Brisbourne: turn it into a new track. And so AI is
Alistair Brisbourne: basically using the strengths of AI to recognize patterns within
Alistair Brisbourne: large data sets and extract that in a useful way
Alistair Brisbourne: for us.
Maiki Lynch: What's this got to do with accounting and finance and
Maiki Lynch: the roles that we have?
Alistair Brisbourne: Well, I mean, the core of our job is to look at
Alistair Brisbourne: huge amounts of financial data, as well as other forms
Alistair Brisbourne: of data these days. We're looking at more unstructured data
Alistair Brisbourne: sets like text these days and imagery and things like
Alistair Brisbourne: that. And so being able to extract insight from that
Alistair Brisbourne: data is absolutely fundamental in the accountancy role, and it
Alistair Brisbourne: will be even more so moving forward. If you think
Alistair Brisbourne: about some of these routine tasks that accountants are involved
Alistair Brisbourne: in, the data entry tasks, reconciling debits and credits, and some
Alistair Brisbourne: of these basic things that everyone has to learn along
Alistair Brisbourne: the way, AI is really useful in not just saving
Alistair Brisbourne: time, but also reducing errors and increasing accuracy in those
Alistair Brisbourne: processes, so it's fantastic. And then we can apply it
Alistair Brisbourne: to things like fraud, so identifying anomalies within data sets,
Alistair Brisbourne: improving our risk management processes. We can use it to
Alistair Brisbourne: help interpret tax law, to help fill out forms. So
Alistair Brisbourne: there are a myriad ways in which AI can help
Alistair Brisbourne: the accountancy profession, I think we're just scratching the surface
Alistair Brisbourne: at the moment.
Maiki Lynch: I love what you've talked about there because it sounds
Maiki Lynch: like we're going beyond just efficiencies that can be made,
Maiki Lynch: perhaps some more the entry level roles there.
Alistair Brisbourne: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Efficiency is the immediate go- to we
Alistair Brisbourne: think about when we think about AI and automation, but
Alistair Brisbourne: really it's about enabling better strategic advice. It's about moving
Alistair Brisbourne: beyond just the transactional aspects of the role and actually
Alistair Brisbourne: providing that business acumen, that strategic acumen, that accountants actually
Alistair Brisbourne: do have. They have a solid understanding of their organization
Alistair Brisbourne: because of the information that they're working with.
Maiki Lynch: Imtiaz, I'd like to come to you if I may.
Maiki Lynch: You've been in senior accounting roles for some time. What
Maiki Lynch: conversations have you been hearing about AI?
Imtiaz Ahmad: Well, it depends on the context. Usually AI is taken
Imtiaz Ahmad: as a threat. Every time, if you see the last
Imtiaz Ahmad: 50 to 70 years of human history where we have evolved so
Imtiaz Ahmad: much technological development and everything around it, whenever there is
Imtiaz Ahmad: a new technological development, new advancement, there is a new
Imtiaz Ahmad: milestone, it's always taken as a threat first. And then
Imtiaz Ahmad: later on people realized, " Oh, no, no, no, no. It was
Imtiaz Ahmad: a mistake. It's better for us to enable us to
Imtiaz Ahmad: help us to facilitate the processes." So the same thing
Imtiaz Ahmad: is with AI. You see now we are, as Alistair
Imtiaz Ahmad: has said, that we are more of at the initial stage
Imtiaz Ahmad: of scratching the surface. There are so much more we
Imtiaz Ahmad: are going to do, not only in accountancy, but in
Imtiaz Ahmad: every other aspect of life. The reconciliations between one account
Imtiaz Ahmad: to another account, between one organization to another organization, is
Imtiaz Ahmad: going to be automated. We are going to be working
Imtiaz Ahmad: more on analytical side than the data processing itself.
Maiki Lynch: And within your own work, has it changed your own work, has it?
Imtiaz Ahmad: Oh, so much, so much, so much so. I remember when
Imtiaz Ahmad: I started working right after my qualification in 2007, I
Imtiaz Ahmad: was working in public sector in one of the organizations in Pakistan. And I
Imtiaz Ahmad: mean, you will be surprised, it was not that old
Imtiaz Ahmad: time, but still people were using the ledgers, the hardcore
Imtiaz Ahmad: printed ledgers, and we were doing actual reconciliation between bank
Imtiaz Ahmad: and the ledger by hand on the ledger, on the-
Maiki Lynch: I'm not surprised. When I learned bookkeeping, I would go out
Maiki Lynch: and bookkeeping was in books, if you could imagine - books!
Imtiaz Ahmad: Exactly.
Maiki Lynch: Yes. And that T- account that you learn about in
Maiki Lynch: college, that is the spine of the book. That's where
Maiki Lynch: the T- account comes from.
Imtiaz Ahmad: True, true. I mean, it's like 14, 15 years ago only,
Imtiaz Ahmad: and now, a few years back, I was working with
Imtiaz Ahmad: one of the Big Four consulting firms, and one of
Imtiaz Ahmad: the assignments we were working ... One of the Sovereign Wealth
Imtiaz Ahmad: Fund for preparing their financial policies and procedures, and took
Imtiaz Ahmad: us at least two to three months to first prepare
Imtiaz Ahmad: the data process flow diagrams, and then explain them into
Imtiaz Ahmad: the policies and procedures. And that was so much manual
Imtiaz Ahmad: work. We were writing from our own heads, " Okay, the data is
Imtiaz Ahmad: moving here," and there is approval and everything. Now you'll
Imtiaz Ahmad: surprised to know that you can take the picture of
Imtiaz Ahmad: the data flow diagram and give it to ChatGPT or
Imtiaz Ahmad: any other relevant AI, and then it will write you
Imtiaz Ahmad: just like that, give it in two minutes.
Maiki Lynch: Wow. Such a time saving.
Imtiaz Ahmad: Of course. And then what we are going to do
Imtiaz Ahmad: with that, we are going to purify that, we are
Imtiaz Ahmad: going to add value to that. It doesn't mean that we are going
Imtiaz Ahmad: to be out of job because AI has replaced that
Imtiaz Ahmad: processing of the data, that writing down the policies and procedures
Imtiaz Ahmad: manually. No, we are going to work on much higher
Imtiaz Ahmad: level quality. So output is going to be a niche
Imtiaz Ahmad: level of the quality actually in the coming time.
Maiki Lynch: So we're freeing up our time-
Imtiaz Ahmad: Of course.
Maiki Lynch: ... to add value to the business, rather than having to
Maiki Lynch: be involved in such labor- intensive tasks.
Imtiaz Ahmad: Exactly, exactly.
Maiki Lynch: I love that. Alistair, I want to come back to
Maiki Lynch: you. You've done some research on how potential students feel
Maiki Lynch: about AI. Just wondering what have you found?
Alistair Brisbourne: It's interesting, and it's interesting, I'm listening to what Imtiaz was saying as
Alistair Brisbourne: well because there are obviously a few different challenges here. To answer
Alistair Brisbourne: the question directly, Generation Z does seem to be slightly
Alistair Brisbourne: more concerned about the impact of AI than other generations. We
Alistair Brisbourne: look at our talent trends work, in the last two
Alistair Brisbourne: years it's that generation that expresses the most concern about
Alistair Brisbourne: technological development in general, but AI specifically. And that's slightly counterintuitive-
Maiki Lynch: I agree.
Alistair Brisbourne: ... because we tend to think they're coming in with a
Alistair Brisbourne: skillset or an awareness of these technologies that maybe older
Alistair Brisbourne: generations don't have, so we are surprised to see that.
Alistair Brisbourne: And when we dig into it and ask the questions and
Alistair Brisbourne: we get into the discussions, it does seem that there
Alistair Brisbourne: are a couple different reasons for that. One is that
Alistair Brisbourne: there is a concern that their career path is going
Alistair Brisbourne: to be disrupted by automation or AI. That there's a
Alistair Brisbourne: lot of talk about those entry- level jobs being affected,
Alistair Brisbourne: and they're very aware that that could mean them. And
Alistair Brisbourne: so what does their career look like in the future
Alistair Brisbourne: is a challenge. Then the other side of it's the
Alistair Brisbourne: skill side. There is this impetus to be more tech-
Alistair Brisbourne: aware, to have that tech skillset. That's exciting for some
Alistair Brisbourne: people, but it's not exciting for everyone. And so I
Alistair Brisbourne: think part of it is the messaging and the communication
Alistair Brisbourne: in that there's actually a huge opportunity and this next
Alistair Brisbourne: generation is going to be really, really important to how
Alistair Brisbourne: AI is adopted. And we've already discussed how AI is
Alistair Brisbourne: really fundamental to the evolution of the accountancy profession, but
Alistair Brisbourne: they're going to be at the heart of devising the
Alistair Brisbourne: solutions, the new ways of working, but also in leveraging
Alistair Brisbourne: those new insights, as Imtiaz was saying. So they are
Alistair Brisbourne: going to have an opportunity earlier in their career to
Alistair Brisbourne: actually take on more strategic roles, not to be bogged
Alistair Brisbourne: down in some of the more manual tasks that a
Alistair Brisbourne: lot of people who qualified earlier were in their careers.
Alistair Brisbourne: So actually we need to communicate more the exciting opportunity that exists
Alistair Brisbourne: for people that are coming into the profession now because
Alistair Brisbourne: it does seem like job security and skills challenges are
Alistair Brisbourne: the major concerns that Gen Z are expressing when they
Alistair Brisbourne: think about AI.
Maiki Lynch: And I don't know if your research touches on this,
Maiki Lynch: but does this compare to what we're seeing in other
Maiki Lynch: industries outside of accounting and finance?
Alistair Brisbourne: I mean, I think a really, really good comparison is
Alistair Brisbourne: the legal profession. It's similar in the sense that we're
Alistair Brisbourne: at a similar stage in terms of the adoption of
Alistair Brisbourne: AI, but also some of the ways in which AI
Alistair Brisbourne: is starting to make a difference is similar. So we
Alistair Brisbourne: think about routine tasks in the legal profession, there's a
Alistair Brisbourne: lot of contract or document review that has to take
Alistair Brisbourne: place. While we're reconciling data, entering data, they're doing what
Alistair Brisbourne: are very manual, time- intensive review tasks. They're also more
Alistair Brisbourne: heavily involved in compliance and risk management. And so there
Alistair Brisbourne: are big similarities in terms of the way the professions
Alistair Brisbourne: are going. And most law firms used to have big
Alistair Brisbourne: libraries at the heart of them, and then they moved
Alistair Brisbourne: online to things like LexisNexis and databases, and now they're
Alistair Brisbourne: adopting things like generative AI in order to help them
Alistair Brisbourne: extract information from those databases more efficiently or more effectively.
Alistair Brisbourne: And so it's very similar to what accounting and finance
Alistair Brisbourne: professionals are trying to do right now, so I wonder
Alistair Brisbourne: if these two will evolve together. We could learn a
Alistair Brisbourne: lot from each other probably in the way we're moving.
Maiki Lynch: How do you think things are likely to change, if
Maiki Lynch: you can perhaps look forward?
Alistair Brisbourne: Yeah. Imtiaz has already pointed to some really important changes
Alistair Brisbourne: that are starting to happen, AI is really going to
Alistair Brisbourne: enable that, and that is using AI- generated insights in order to
Alistair Brisbourne: provide greater value. The big challenge we have is that,
Alistair Brisbourne: as I said at the beginning, we're faced with huge
Alistair Brisbourne: amounts of data, and getting our heads around it and
Alistair Brisbourne: extracting the most useful insights for our organization is really
Alistair Brisbourne: difficult and really time- consuming at the very least, and
Alistair Brisbourne: impossible in some cases because there's too much information. And
Alistair Brisbourne: so AI is really a huge step- up in our
Alistair Brisbourne: ability to actually guide organizations to provide a trusted source
Alistair Brisbourne: of advice, and also to provide greater value out of
Alistair Brisbourne: the proprietary data that organizations have access to. And without
Alistair Brisbourne: AI, we can't do that. So it's actually a really,
Alistair Brisbourne: really important thing that we need to learn how to
Alistair Brisbourne: use more effectively.
Maiki Lynch: Where can people go to find out more about this?
Alistair Brisbourne: Well, we've recently released an ACCA guide to AI in
Alistair Brisbourne: finance, I believe that was released in August last year,
Alistair Brisbourne: which covers some of the ways in which we think
Alistair Brisbourne: AI is going to change the profession, but also some
Alistair Brisbourne: of our principles as an organization towards the adoption of
Alistair Brisbourne: AI and what we think needs to happen in order
Alistair Brisbourne: to take advantage of it. There's also the Digital Horizons
Alistair Brisbourne: report, which was released in September, which touches on some
Alistair Brisbourne: of the practical ways in which AI is likely to
Alistair Brisbourne: impact the profession, as well as some of the different
Alistair Brisbourne: characteristics in terms of organizations that are leading the way
Alistair Brisbourne: in that regard. And it also touches on generative AI,
Alistair Brisbourne: the hot topic at the time, as to why is
Alistair Brisbourne: it exciting, why should we pay attention to it? Is
Alistair Brisbourne: the hype real or is there substance behind it? And so
Alistair Brisbourne: this is available on the ACCA website and the P&I, the
Alistair Brisbourne: policy and insights pages, and we have more work upcoming
Alistair Brisbourne: this year certainly that's going to cover AI in much
Alistair Brisbourne: greater depth.
Maiki Lynch: Imtiaz, I want to come back to you. What do
Maiki Lynch: you think about these coming changes?
Imtiaz Ahmad: In coming years of time, there will be more work
Imtiaz Ahmad: on the analytical side. You are going to see where are
Imtiaz Ahmad: the gaps, where are the inefficiencies, where are the improvement areas.
Imtiaz Ahmad: And then work on those rather than doing the hardcore
Imtiaz Ahmad: laborious work on your own.
Maiki Lynch: What do you hope for the future of AI?
Imtiaz Ahmad: As I mentioned earlier, I mean, AI is going to
Imtiaz Ahmad: be one side. I mean, in the coming days you
Imtiaz Ahmad: will seeing ChatGPT stores coming just like App Store and
Imtiaz Ahmad: those kind of plugins are going to be integrated with
Imtiaz Ahmad: the ChatGPT and other AI platforms. It is going to
Imtiaz Ahmad: be integrated in every process. It's going to touch accounting
Imtiaz Ahmad: side, finance side, analysis side, budgeting side. It's going to
Imtiaz Ahmad: touch every aspect within our profession. We have multiple lines
Imtiaz Ahmad: within our profession. We have taxation, we have the accounting, we
Imtiaz Ahmad: have audit. Within audit, we have internal audit, external audit.
Imtiaz Ahmad: I mean, you name it. It's not going to be
Imtiaz Ahmad: restricted on one pillar of the profession, it's going to
Imtiaz Ahmad: affect all. How? I'm sure it is going to be
Imtiaz Ahmad: a positive change and that will be a very pleasant
Imtiaz Ahmad: and welcoming towards the new generation who are aspiring to
Imtiaz Ahmad: join the profession actually.
Maiki Lynch: Thank you so much. Just from what you've both said,
Maiki Lynch: it makes me think that perhaps each generation we need
Maiki Lynch: to be thinking about becoming that purple person, having that
Maiki Lynch: balance between our accounting and finance skills, and also an
Maiki Lynch: awareness and ability within technology and that space as well.
Maiki Lynch: Just want to come to you both and ask, is
Maiki Lynch: AI going to take all of the accountancy jobs? Imtiaz,
Maiki Lynch: can I come to you first?
Imtiaz Ahmad: Yeah, sure. It's not going to replace humans at all.
Imtiaz Ahmad: I am a big believer of enabling technology for helping
Imtiaz Ahmad: the humans to do much more than they originally have
Imtiaz Ahmad: been doing it before. It's going to be an enabler
Imtiaz Ahmad: rather than destroyer. It's going to be as support towards
Imtiaz Ahmad: humans rather than replacing the humans. It's going to see
Imtiaz Ahmad: that wherever there is repetitive nature of works, wherever there
Imtiaz Ahmad: are laborious processes, and give more of analytical side and
Imtiaz Ahmad: more of that side, which AI cannot do that. No,
Imtiaz Ahmad: there's so much creativity, so much things which humans can
Imtiaz Ahmad: do and AI cannot do, and AI will never be able
Imtiaz Ahmad: to do that side of the work. There is the
Imtiaz Ahmad: gap we are going to fulfill, and that is going
Imtiaz Ahmad: to be the side where we need to focus in
Imtiaz Ahmad: the coming time.
Maiki Lynch: And, Alistair, can I come to you with the same
Maiki Lynch: question, is AI going to take all of the accountancy jobs?
Alistair Brisbourne: Yeah, look, I couldn't agree more. I mean, artificial intelligence
Alistair Brisbourne: is not human intelligence. They are different things and they
Alistair Brisbourne: are good at different things. AI is a huge enabler, as
Alistair Brisbourne: Imtiaz says, it's great for augmenting certain tasks or certain
Alistair Brisbourne: capabilities because it can extract insights from huge data sets
Alistair Brisbourne: that would take us ages to do. And it's great
Alistair Brisbourne: for that. It's great for other things in terms of
Alistair Brisbourne: reviewing documents, producing text now with generative AI, there are
Alistair Brisbourne: great ways in which we can employ it, but it's
Alistair Brisbourne: not the same as the problem- solving capabilities than the
Alistair Brisbourne: accountant has because of the contextual knowledge that humans can
Alistair Brisbourne: apply because of the ... There's deep domain expertise and the experience
Alistair Brisbourne: they have in seeing the way things can go wrong.
Alistair Brisbourne: So AI will actually need someone to monitor and provide
Alistair Brisbourne: oversight. And even if we think about those entry level
Alistair Brisbourne: jobs, which we could say are maybe most at risk
Alistair Brisbourne: in terms of reduction in the number that might be
Alistair Brisbourne: required, you still need someone there who understands the basic
Alistair Brisbourne: principles, how things work, and to oversee the system to
Alistair Brisbourne: make sure it's operating correctly, because machine learning AI is
Alistair Brisbourne: not perfect either. This is where you get that purple
Alistair Brisbourne: person that you were talking about, that merging of skillsets,
Alistair Brisbourne: someone that has the domain expertise in accountancy but also
Alistair Brisbourne: more of a technical side. This is a huge opportunity
Alistair Brisbourne: in that area. I think what we're going to see
Alistair Brisbourne: is actually a proliferation of specialisms. And the challenge we
Alistair Brisbourne: have right now is we can't actually see all the
Alistair Brisbourne: jobs that are going to be created, all the new
Alistair Brisbourne: areas where there will be new jobs or new roles
Alistair Brisbourne: that are required in order to better make use of
Alistair Brisbourne: this technology, to extract more value for our organization. And
Alistair Brisbourne: that's something that is just going to evolve through practice,
Alistair Brisbourne: the work that Imtiaz is doing, and other people, they're
Alistair Brisbourne: developing those roles. And we're sitting back and we're trying
Alistair Brisbourne: to figure out with our crystal balls what's going to
Alistair Brisbourne: happen. But no, absolutely, it's not going to replace accountants,
Alistair Brisbourne: it's not going to replace roles in wholesale. It will
Alistair Brisbourne: change roles, it will change what people do.
Maiki Lynch: Thank you both for your answer to that question. That's fantastic. If someone at home
Maiki Lynch: is considering a career in accounting and finance, Alistair, I
Maiki Lynch: want to come to you first, what advice might you
Maiki Lynch: give them if they're considering it?
Alistair Brisbourne: I mean, that's a really good question. It's a difficult
Alistair Brisbourne: question in the sense that the qualification, accountants do so many
Alistair Brisbourne: different roles. I think sometimes it's assumed that accountants do
Alistair Brisbourne: one thing, but actually I was sitting down with my
Alistair Brisbourne: colleagues the other day and we were trying to list
Alistair Brisbourne: all the roles that accountants do and we just kept
Alistair Brisbourne: going from page to page to page. And so I
Alistair Brisbourne: think it's really exciting. If someone wants to understand how
Alistair Brisbourne: business works or how organizations operate, what is driving value
Alistair Brisbourne: within organizations, then I think this is a great career
Alistair Brisbourne: for anyone who has that kind of mindset, who maybe
Alistair Brisbourne: has that analytical mindset, has that problem- solving mindset, who
Alistair Brisbourne: really wants to get involved and make a difference.
Maiki Lynch: Thank you. And, Imtiaz, can I come to you, your advice to someone
Maiki Lynch: who's considering a career in accounting and finance?
Imtiaz Ahmad: Look, this is an interesting question. I would like to
Imtiaz Ahmad: see, no matter what technological developments, no matter what advancements
Imtiaz Ahmad: are there, money is going to be there. It moved
Imtiaz Ahmad: from hardcore cash to a number in the bank account,
Imtiaz Ahmad: and then the coming years of time when we are
Imtiaz Ahmad: going to introduce the blockchain technology, and then these will be something
Imtiaz Ahmad: else. However, the concept of money is not going to
Imtiaz Ahmad: fade away because it has evolved over centuries actually. As
Imtiaz Ahmad: long as there is money, there will always be need
Imtiaz Ahmad: of accountants.
Maiki Lynch: That's fantastic. Thank you so much. That's it for this
Maiki Lynch: episode of By All Accounts. Thank you Imtiaz and Alistair
Maiki Lynch: for joining us today. And that's it from the series.
Maiki Lynch: I hope it's cleared up some questions for you about
Maiki Lynch: working in the financial industries. With skills in accountancy finance
Maiki Lynch: you can work in any business anywhere and turn your
Maiki Lynch: passion into an exciting and rewarding career with an ACCA
Maiki Lynch: qualification. You can sign up to find out more by
Maiki Lynch: heading to accaglobal. com/ be- you- anywhere. That link is also in
Maiki Lynch: the show notes. I'm Maiki Lynch and this has been
Maiki Lynch: By All Accounts.