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The world’s largest accounting body – Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has reportedly stopped students from taking online exams. According to a report by the Financial Times, the accounting body, which has almost 260,000 members, said that it will stop allowing students to take online exams in all but exceptional circumstances from March 2026.

The move comes as the body aims to crack down on a rise in cheating on tests. “We’re seeing the sophistication of [cheating] systems outpacing what can be put in, [in] terms of safeguards,” Helen Brand, the chief executive of the ACCA, said in an interview with the publication. Brand said that ACCA had worked “intensively” to combat cheating but “people who want to do bad things are probably working at a quicker pace”. With the rapid rise of technology, led by AI tools, the issue of cheating has moved to a “tipping point”, she added.Online/remote tests were introduced during covid times to enable students to qualify at a time when lockdowns prevented in-person exam assessment. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) – Britain’s accounting and auditing industry regulator in 2022 said that cheating in professional exams was a “live” issue at Britain’s biggest companies.According to a report by The Guradian, the FRC’s investigation then found instances of cheating in some tier-one auditors, a category comprising the “big four” accountants – KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and EY – along with Mazars, Grant Thornton and BDO. Interestingly, in the same year, EY agreed to pay a record $100m (£74m) to US regulators over claims that dozens of its employees cheated on an ethics exam and that the company then misled investigators.