Hong Kong accounting regulator stresses zero tolerance for unregistered accountants

The Accounting and Financial Reporting Council will continue its role to monitor Hong Kong's accounting firms, with an emphasis on a risk-based audit approach to avoid unregistered accountants, its chairman, David Sun Tak-kei, said.

The council inspected over 60 firms last year to review whether their projects met auditing and accounting standards. Among 30 major investigations, 10 received disciplinary action.

Sun added that the surge of the initial public offering market is beneficial to the Hong Kong accounting industry, but also poses challenges at the same time, hoping that auditors can uphold their assessment qualities on IPO registration as per their recent open letter published on February 13.

Gloria Leung