Accounting Course for Assessors

As part of our ongoing collaboration with the Malaysian Productivity Corporation (MPC), the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) conducted a one-day accounting program for assessors. Basically, the  two groups of assessors who attended the program comprised of: (i) MPC assessors who assess the Quality Management Excellence Award (QMEA) and (ii) PROTON assessors who assess Vendor Quality Award.  Basic Accounting Course for assessors is divided into three important parts.  The first part examines key ratios which include (i) Return on Equity, (ii)  Liquidity, (iii) Profitability, (iv) Asset Management and (v) Leverage.  The second part covers comparative analysis of the company's performance via Horizontal and Vertical Analyses.  Ration analysis on it own is meaningless unless it is benchmarked with the best in the industry or compared with previous years' performance.  The third part of the course reviews management accounting techniques that should be adopted by companies to assist management to either control costs or to make the most strategic decision.  In the afternoon, participants had to choose a company for them to evaluate.  Based on what they have learned, they need to assess the financial performance of the company.

IPSC 2012

Day 2

The second day of  IPSC 2012 was filled with more interesting deliberations.  A guest speaker from MACC presented a paper titled "Fraud in Public Sector: A Never Ending Story".  The speaker uses the Fraud Triangle Theory to explain behaviours of fraudster.  He further deliberated on a recent public sector fraud survey.  Following the interesting talk, were the presentations of more than seventy public sector research papers through ten parallel sessions.  Generally, the conference participants had such a difficult time to choose the "best slot" to attend. 

The afternoon sessions were filled with two very interesting slots: (i) A Forum " Embracing Accrual Accounting: Blending the Private and Public Sector Initiatives" and (ii) A special keynote speech by the Auditor General Tan Sri Dato' Setia Haji Ambrin bin Buang on a topic titled "Food for Thought: Issues in Public Sector Auditing".  Tan Sri shared several audit incidents and deliberated on how government auditors are expected to undergo continuous training programs so that they are always ahead in terms of professional and technical competencies.  Since government auditors are not given the statutory power to act against fraudsters from among unscrupulous public officers, other regulatory and enforcement agencies must play their role more effectively to quickly investigate and to charge wrong doers.

IPSC 2012 ended with the announcement of five best papers.  Congratulation all winners.  The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) wish to thank (i) all members of the organizing committee, (ii) local and international participants and (iii) donors,  for a successful conference.

International Public Sector Conference 2012

Day 1

 

The two-day International Public Sector Conference 2012 (IPSC 2012), which is jointly organized by the Public Sector Research Centre and the Financial Reporting Research Centre of the Accounting Research Institute; Faculty of Accountancy and Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah campus was officially launched this morning with some very interesting Plenary sessions.  Themed "Reshaping and Energizing the Public Sector", the conference is attended by more than 200 participants from among public sector organisations and  academia from Malaysia, Indonesia, Eqypt, India and South Africa.  Essentially, the objectives of the conference are to provide a platform for participants to present their research findings; to discuss and share their thoughts on issues related to public sector accounting & financial reporting and to share knowledge & information between academics and practitioners. The first keynote  paper titled "Public Sector Reform: The South Africa Experience" was presented in the morning by a researcher from the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, South Africa.  Following the keynote address,  was a forum on "Women in Leadership in Public  Sector", which was deliberated by Dato' Sutinah of MACC, Dr Ruzita of UiTM Sabah and Ms Nomantu Nkomo-Rolehoko from South Africa.,  The afternoon sessions continued with two guest papers on "Green Accounting: Towards Energy Management" and "Fraud in Public Sector - Zero Tolerance" and a Forum titled "Towards New Landscape for Public Sector Reporting: The Role of the Professional Bodies". Conference participants were invited to a charity dinner which was officiated by the Sabah Chief Minister, YAB Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman.  The Chief Minister later on  launched the publication of eight research monographs by researchers from the Public Sector Accounting Research Centre and presented donations for three entities - Child Sabah Daycare Centre; TOLUMIS - Home for Disables and MDAB UiTM Fund.

IFCTF 2012

Day Two

The second day continued with two plenary sessions in the morning.  Plenary Session 3 focused on "Challenges in Implementing the Financial Action Task Force Recommendation related to Risk-Based" - with spekers from AUSTRAC, Citibank Hong Kong and ORACLE Practice Solution consultant from India.  One of the biggest challenges that regulators and financial institutions often have to face is the "subjectivity nature of the assessment" itself.  Whilst one institution may consider a client to be  of "low risk", another institution may classify the same client as "high risk".  As such, it is necessary that financial institutions and other reporting institutions must provide detailed documentation to reflect how and why such "risk-based classification" was reached. 

 

Plenary session 4 showcased "Anti-Money Laundering Success Stories".  Panelists comprise the Director, Federal Special Task Force - Operations and Counter Terrorism of the Royal Malaysia Police; Deputy Director of Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and the FIU of Hong Kong.  In Hong Kong, the FIU is part of the Police Department.

In the afternoon, three parallel sessions were held to discuss three important topics of (i) Terrorism Financing - Red Flags for Identification; (ii) International Financial Centres - What Can go Wrong, and (iii) Insurance Industry and Risk against AML-CFT.

The Final plenary session 5 on "Cyber Crime Trends, Impact and Safeguards to Business" saw discussions among practice solution developers.  The closing remarks were deliberated by the CEO of AIF, Dr Raymond Madden.

IFCTF 2012

Day One

The opening ceremony of the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2012 (IFCTF 2012) was officially graced this morning by the Deputy Inspector of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.  In his speech, Tan Sri Khalid emphasized on the need for enforcement agencies such as the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) to continuously update itself with new technology and the police must also  keep pace with latest financial crime tactics.

Various plenary sessions that were held after the opening ceremony further showcased several international experts from the Asia Pacific Group on Anti Money Laundering  (APG), AUSTRAC, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), World Bank, UK Her Royal Majesty Custom and other regional Financial Intelligence units (FIUs).  The focus of the conference this year has gone beyond compliance.  Most discussions have centred around "risk-based assessment" and "effectiveness of compliance".  In view of the forthcoming mutual evaluation in 2013, many speakers have elaborated on FATF's "40 New Recommendations" and "Assessment Framework".

In the afternoon, there were six concurrent sessions where speakers were grouped into different sub-topics such as Insurance Fraud; AML/CFT Competency & Training; Cash Movement; Capital Market Typologies; Current Trends in Cyber Crime and Capital Market Fraud & Investigation.

The two-day conference saw a record number of 600 participants.  The Accounting Research Institute is indeed very honoured to be invited to co-organize the prestigous event. IFCTF 2012 is organized by the Compliance Officer Networking Group (CONG), AIF and supported by Bank Negara Malaysia.

Meeting the Chief Secretary of Malaysia

Malaysia's new Chief Secretary Datuk Seri Dr Ali Hamsa, made an official visit to Universiti Teknologi MARA.  During the visit, he met up with academic and adminstrative staff of the university.  As part of his "open door" policy, Datuk Seri Ali welcomes feedback and suggestions from civil servants and other government stakeholders on ways to expedite the government transformation ptogram (GTP).  One of his priority agendas is to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector.  One of the good news he brought to the university was the setting up of a teaching hospital for UiTM in its Puncak Alam campus.

Visit to Al-Rajhi Corporate Office

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) thanks the Compliance Division of the Al-Rajhi bank for accepting our visit to the corporate office this morning.  Two ARI researchers, Professor Dr Normah Omar and Associate Professor Dr Pok Wee Ching met with senior officers of the Compliance Division to discuss on AML-CFT awareness programs at financial institutions.  In tandem with our current research focus on the Governance of Non-Profit Organizations, a special session will be arranged by the bank for an awareness talk for its staff on "NPO - Know Your Client" by ARI researcher.  The NPO sector is fairly huge and the APG/FATF has issued guidelines requiring NPO to furnish "Material Information" in its reporting.  Such material information includes :

1.  Disclosure on different types of revenues (e.g. membership fees, grants, donation etc)

2.  Disclosure on activities of NPO for generating funds (e.g. receipts from dinner and sales of books)

3.  Disclosure on investment income (if any)

4.  Disclosure on expenditure and its distribution

5.  List of personnel (members & directors)

 

Meeting with PHN Sdn Berhad

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) thanks Mr Azhar, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of PHN Sdn Berhad for hosting a meeting to discuss a research project titled "Target Costing Implementation Decisions and Organizational Capabilities" by one of our PhD students.   PHN is one of the leading automotive component manufacturers in this country.  PHN Clients include among others, renowned automotive companies such as PROTON, PERODUA, HONDA and NISSAN. In principle, PHN agrees to participate in the study, which will involve questionnaire survey, focus group interviews, site visit and a case study.... 

Thank You Professor Milind Sathye

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) is certainly honoured to have received Professor Milind Sathye from the University of Canberra, Australia as our guest and visiting professor. Prof Sathye conducted research & publication workshops with both post graduate students and staff; attended ARI research progress evaluation retreat; held meetings with the Anti Money Laundering & Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) research cluster; meeting and research briefing with the Compliance Officer Networking Group (CONG) at the Institute of Banks, Malaysia; organized a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) evening talk for the CPA Australia members in Kuala Lumpur; on-on-one research and publicationselling with individual researchers and meeting with the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).  ARI hopes to produce a lot of joint publications with Professor Sathye, especially in the area of AML-CFT.  Prof Sathye's expertise and research interest is in anti money laundering.  In 2008, he published a landmark paper on the computation of compliance cost of AML-CFT.  Currently Prof Sathye is involved in ARI HICoE research project in the Computation of AML-CFT Compliance Cost for Malaysia.

Prof Sathye's Meeting with DVC UiTM

It is often customary that the host of any visiting professor of the university is to bring our guest to meet the deputy vice chancellor.  In the case of Universiti Teknologi MARA, the deputy vice chancellor (DVC) who is entrusted to review the appointments of visiting professors, visiting scientists, academic advisors and adjunct professors is the "Academic and Internationalization" DVC.  Today, the Accounting Research Institute (ARI)'s liason officer and researcher, Associate Professor Dr Pok Wee Ching brought Professor Milind Sathye to meet DVC Prof Dr Azni Zain Ahmed for an informal chat.  Since Prof Sathye's expertise in the Anti Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) is in line with ARI's aspiration of becoming a reference centre in Financial Criminology research, he will be showcased in UiTM's forthcoming Academic Coffee Table Book which will be published by the the DVC (academic & internationalization) office in May 2013.  Prof Azni and Prof Sathye discussed on the importance of universities to embark on international collaborations - in academic programs and in research.  Both also saw the potential of ARI as a regional centre of excellence in its niche research area of Islamic Financial Criminology.