The British Council, who is currently ACCA’s main exam centre provider for its paper-based exams, providing over half of the venues in ACCA’s international network.

Helen Brand, ACCA chief executive, said: ‘This new agreement sees the British Council provide ACCA’s future exam centre network in the UK and overseas, exclusively for ACCA students. This deal supports the roll-out of ACCA’s new computer based exams for ACCA’s Fundamentals Skills Level (F5-F9) exams from September 2016 onwards.

‘CBEs are an exciting development for ACCA, as we incorporate spread sheets and word processing to better reflect the tasks that students have to do well in the workplace. This ensures that our students not only have the required technical knowledge, but they know how to apply that knowledge.’

Sir Ciarán Devane, CEO of the British Council, said ‘The British Council works to build mutual knowledge and understanding between people overseas and people in the UK. A very important part of this work involves building trust and creating opportunities by enabling access to UK education around the world.’

ACCA has also officially opened its new global head office at The Adelphi building in London, in a ceremony with Kenneth Olisa, Lord Lieutenant of Greater London.

As a businessman and philanthropist, Olisa said that being able to ‘manage what can be measured’ is crucial and that the ability to perform this work professionally and fittingly is a real value-add of the accountancy profession.

Olisa said: ‘Accountancy is the language of business. It helps us talk to one another around the world using the same terminology, and the same standards.’