The US is set to converge to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from US GAAP by 2015 and experts here feel that this could be the next big outsourcing opportunity for India.

As usual, US would be facing shortage of chartered accountants (CA) and would likely outsource the work to talent rich India, which would have achieved the full IFRS compliance by 2011 and the accountants here would have acquired the necessary know-how.

Although each company’s timeline will vary, a well-planned IFRS conversion project may take as long as two or three years from start to finish and the US companies would start the transition process from 2012, states an IFRS conversion guide by Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

“About 6,000 US companies would transit to IFRS during 2014-2016. Assuming that 3,000 small companies may implement IFRS internally, the remaining 3,000 would need an external agency’s help for adoption,” executive director and head of US GAAP and IFRS services at KPMG, Jamil Khatri said.

Each company may need a 5-10 member team for implementation. Even if 20-30 per cent of the work is outsourced its big opportunity for India, he added.

Dolphy D’souza, partner at Ernst & Young agrees with Khatri and said India is the only place where there would be available pool of talent and if the CAs can acquire the necessary skills, there is a huge opportunity to be tapped.

“US IFRS transition is a huge opportunity for the CA in India and we are also gearing up for the same,” president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) Ved Jain added. Khatri says that major US companies may spend anything between $5 million to $10 million on transition and termed it as a $1 billion opportunity.