Identity

I’m now officially an ex-Chartered Accountant. Perhaps your view of bean counters (boring, excited by spreadsheets, etc.) is not that high, in which case my new status hardly warrants much attention or pity.

But the truth is I feel like something has gone. I worked hard for my qualification, and paid for it too. Up until recently, I benefited from a low-income subscription which made sense of keeping the connection, but this year I crossed the threshold and they sent me a bill for hundreds of pounds.

So I relinquished my hard-earned status. The truth is that I had not thought that much of this change until I had a letter from the Institute telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer permitted to call myself a Chartered Accountant or use the letters FCA after my name. The force of this stern letter was muted somewhat by the fact that it was addressed to Adrian Reynolds FCA, but notwithstanding this oversight, the point was clear.