National accountancy body surpasses 40,000 members; president Teo Ser Luck sees 50,000 by end-2026

[SINGAPORE] Membership at the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (Isca) has crossed the 40,000 mark, fuelled largely by a surge in student sign-ups.

The national accounting body expects to reach 43,600 members by end-2025, up 11 per cent from 2024. The 30,000 mark was passed in 2016.

Isca president Teo Ser Luck told The Business Times that the institute could hit 50,000 members by end-2026, although it has not set that as a formal target.

“We didn’t set a target for 40,000 too – what we did was just to do our best to increase the membership,” said Teo.

“What we set as a target was that we must always have the pipeline of new joiners stronger than the charterholders’ rate of retirement – I think (the retirement rate) is less than 1 per cent per year,” he added.

Of the projected 43,600 members, around 10,000 will be student members – a 56 per cent increase from a year ago.

These students primarily hail from secondary schools, Institutes of Technical Education, polytechnics and universities in Singapore.

More than 1,000 are foreign students from Isca’s overseas chapters, primarily in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.

Isca only began promoting overseas student membership in late 2024. Asked whether the overseas figure met internal expectations, Teo said: “I would say I’m happy that this is just from less than one year’s work, to have more than 1,000-plus (overseas student members) in that timeframe.”

Student members may take up to 10 years to complete the Singapore Chartered Accountant Qualification (SCAQ) programme – the only route to becoming a Chartered Accountant (Singapore).

The conversion rate – the proportion of student members who eventually complete the SCAQ – currently stands at 15 per cent. But Teo is more focused on tracking the number of active candidates in the programme.

By end-2025, Isca expects the number of SCAQ candidates to hit 7,300, a 70 per cent increase from the previous year.

Passing rates for the December 2024 SCAQ exams were 65 per cent for the foundation programme and 79 per cent for the professional programme. Teo expects these rates to remain stable, even with the surge in candidates.

“We even want the passing rate to go up, but we’ll have to give a lot of support in supplementary classes through Isca Academy,” he said.

Support measures include free, facilitated study sessions held two weeks before exams – one two-hour session per module each semester, amounting to 20 sessions a year. These are conducted both on-site at Isca House on Cecil Street and online for overseas students.

Isca Academy, the institute’s for-profit adult learning arm, will be spun off and privatised in January 2026. In the interim, leadership appointments have been made.

Quek Mu Lim, executive director at the Wealth Management Institute, will join as chief executive officer of Isca Academy in October. Cyndi Pei, chief financial officer of Digital InfraCo at Singtel, has been named chairperson of the academy’s board.