10/03/2013

Predicting The October 2013 CPA Board Exams Results

For the past 3 years, the passing percentage of the October version of the Philippines CPA Board Exams has been consistent at 48%.  Will the same pattern emerge for this year?  Or will the PRC gods decide to rock the proverbial boat and churn out a considerably smaller passing percentage?

If economic indicators play a huge part in the passing percentage (and I believe it is) then we can be looking at the highest percentage of cpa board exam passers in the last five years.  The CPA Board Exams passing percentage could actually breach the 50% mark this year.  One huge reason for this remark is the current state of the BPO industry where F&A outsourcing is a huge part.  According to news reports, the BPO industry grew by 20% in 2012 and is now the second largest source of foreign exchange in the country, just behind remittances.  This means that if the OFWs are these country's new heroes, then the BPO workers are nothing but second rate, trying hard, copycats!  Sorry just kidding, I just had to get that out of my system.  Hehe.

(source: http://www.philstar.com/business/2013/08/21/1113281/economic-footprint-bpo-industry)

These improved numbers and the fact that we are also positioning ourselves as more than just a country with pretty voices and neutral accents all contribute to the belief that the country will need a lot of CPAs.  Currently a lot of corporations that decide to go the F&A outsourcing or even the captive shared services route have no qualms about moving their transactional processes offshore.  But when it comes to the more analytical processes, these folks need a lot of convincing.  In the captive shared services where I used to work, we had to spend year before our company decided to move the more analytical work to Manila.  Having a lot of CPA employees in our workforce helped a lot when we were convincing the North American bosses that we can do what they were doing.

This brings me back to my earlier contention.  With the BPO numbers going up and our country's desire to bring in not just F&A  voice and transactional processes but analytical processes into the country as well, there is a need for more CPAs.  This is why I'm betting that the passing percentage for this year's October CPA Board Exams will be considerably higher than in the previous years.

What do you think?


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