IFRS – US convergence of accounting standards

We are rapidly heading towards a world where there are two main financial reporting systems – US GAAP accounting, used by the largest part of the global capital market, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the system now being used as the benchmark in many other countries – all of Europe, China, Australia, Malaysia and Egypt to name a few.

There has been controversy in certain quarters about whether the time and effort being put into convergence between these two reporting systems is worth it, and whether it will inevitably have an adverse effect on the quality of the international standards.

It may not come as a surprise that, given ACCA’s status as the world’s largest professional international accountancy body with over 370,000 students and