Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), a professional body of management accountants, is seeing

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big demand from India. Apart from students signing up for its courses, the association has tied up with companies to train their employees.

Aubrey Joachim, global president of CIMA said, “The students we are seeing from here have already done their CAs and want CIMA certification as a kind of passport to other countries.”

CIMA members (after passing the course) get reciprocal admittance as part of national accountant bodies in countries like Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia, which means that there is no need to write another exam to get qualified in these countries. CIMA has 171,000 members and students operating in 165 countries.

According to Joachim, Indians were the fastest to complete the course in terms of duration, which is an average of 18 months compared to 30 months in places like the UK and Sri Lanka. The cost of the master’s level course is Rs 1 lakh for the self study route.

CIMA is also talking to Indian companies to partner in training their employees. While its global training partners such as KPMG, Capgemini, Genpact and Shell Services are using them in India, the body has also tied up with Infosys BPO and TVS.

For Infosys BPO, CIMA will train and certify the former’s supervisory and management employees in the finance and accounting practice. Starting initially with 20 people, the number is expected to increase significantly.

“Our USP is that we teach accountants how to tell the story of the business or balance sheet and not just report or audit it. There is lot of demand coming in globally for finance professionals who can predict or analyse the future based on past or current numbers,” he said.