UK accounting body to scrap remote exams - report
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Monday 29 Dec 2025
(Sharecast News) - The Associated of Chartered Certified Accountants said on Monday that it was planning to scrap remote exams as it looks to combat a rise in cheating.
In an interview with the Financial Times, the accounting body's chief executive, Helen Brand, said it will end online exams from March. Candidates will be required to sit assessments in person unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The ACCA introduced remote invigilation during the pandemic to allow students to keep qualifying into the profession during lockdown. However, it has found that online tests have become too difficult to police, particularly as artificial intelligence has made cheating more difficult to combat.
Brand told the FT: "We're seeing the sophistication of [cheating] systems outpacing what can be put in, [in] terms of safeguards."
Brand said the ACCA, which has more than 500,000 students, had worked "intensively" to combat cheating but "people who want to do bad things are probably working at a quicker pace".
"There are very few high-stakes examinations now that are allowing [remote invigilation]," she said.
While technology has made it easier to cheat in remote exams, Brand said some students still cheated in in-person tests.
"Let's not kid ourselves. It's not just the technology. There are other ways . . . formulas up your arm, things down your sock, God knows what - mirrors and everything," she said.
The ACCA's switch to in-person testing comes even as it overhauls its flagship qualification for the first time in a decade to include a greater focus on emerging areas such as AI, blockchain and data science, the FT noted.
Brand said AI had "fundamentally shifted" the skills required of accountants.
Firms including the Big Four have been investing heavily in AI-powered tools to improve their efficiency. That would make it a "challenge" for junior auditors to gain practical experience, Brand said, so the new ACCA modules will simulate real-time scenarios, aiming to train students to apply scepticism to dynamic problems "more than a static exam".
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