ACCA to Halt Online Remote Exams from March 2026 Amid Cheating Concerns
The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the world's largest accounting body with about 260,000 members and over 500,000 students, has announced it will stop offering online remote exams from March 2026 except in exceptional circumstances.
This move aims to curb cheating as ACCA chief executive Helen Brand highlights that systems and AI tools have increasingly outpaced safeguards. The rise of AI-assisted cheating has made online test invigilation difficult to police, with ACCA describing the situation as having reached a tipping point.
Remote testing was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic to allow candidates to qualify when in-person exams were disrupted. However, concerns over the integrity and security of accounting qualifications have escalated. The UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC) described cheating in professional exams as a "live" issue in 2022, with investigations involving major audit firms.
EY, for instance, paid $100 million in 2022 to US regulators related to ethics-exam cheating and misleading investigators. Unlike ACCA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) still allows some online exams, although very few high-stakes exams permit remote invigilation.
The ACCA's decision reflects broader concerns about maintaining the credibility and fairness of professional accounting exams in an era of evolving fraud risks involving AI technologies.
