Many candidates would like to know if they can get ACCA exemptions for CMA if they want to become a Certified Management Accountant.
In June 2012, ACCA and IMA jointly announced a strategic partnership. I see this as a counter-action of the recent AICPA-ICMA alliance, but in any case, it is good news for CMA and ACCA candidates.
ACCA members can now have their bachelor’s degree requirement waived when they seek the CMA certification. In other words, ACCA members are automatically qualified to take the part 1 and part 2 of the exam. They still need to fulfill the rest of the requirements e.g. the 2 years of relevant working experience to get the CMA title.
For full details of this IMA-ACCA alliance, please refer to this press release.
Further and more tangible collaboration was announced on the first anniversary of ACCA IMA partnership, but IMA/ACCA decided not to proceed with this plan (See below under August Update). The original press release was deleted. Here is a summary of the scraped plan:
1. ACCA Exemptions for CMA Exam
2. CMA Exemptions for ACCA Exam
On August 13, 2013, IMA and ACCA announced that they are no longer proceeding with the MRA signed in June 2013 because they see the risk of people taking a “fast-route” for getting qualifications for the sake of it, instead of a benefit for existing members.
This doesn’t mean the ACCA IMA partnership has ended: the exemptions granted in the January 2013 agreement is still valid, i.e. ACCA members who do not have bachelor’s degrees can get qualified to take the CMA exam.
Yes.
ACCA full member –> CMA certification
The benefit is that the degree requirement is waived. In other words, if you are an ACCA full member without a bachelor’s degree, you can still take the CMA exam. Normally, in order to qualify, you must have a bachelor’s degree.
CMA certification holder –> ACCA
Until Dec 31, 2015: you are exempted 7 papers (F1,2,3,4,5,8,9)
Effective Jan 1, 2016: only F1, F2 and F3 are waived:
F1 | Accountant in Business |
F2 | Management Accounting |
F3 | Financial Accounting |
You can double check with this exemption enquiry tool on the ACCA website:
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