INTHEBLACK April 2026 - Magazine - Page 15
TURNING POINTS
While the earliest known evidence of accounting
practice dates back more than 7000 years to ancient
Mesopotamia with primitive transactions involving
animals, livestock and crops, the profession has truly
progressed and thrived in more recent centuries.
In the 1880s, American railroads needed dedicated
bookkeepers and accountants to keep trains on track
financially. The Great Depression put the spotlight
on weaknesses in financial reporting and auditing,
triggering the establishment of the Securities and
Exchange Commission in 1934 to tackle abuses
and fraud in securities markets.
The world wars accelerated cost accounting. From
the 1960s, the broad rise of multinationals fast-tracked
global accounting standards. The Asian financial
crisis in 1997 and the global financial crisis in 2008
underscored risk oversight. Earlier this decade,
the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how
accountants support resilience, cash-flow
management and government stimulus management.
“These events consistently expanded the
profession’s scope and public value,” Sidhu says.
The Asia-Pacific region has also been at the
forefront of changes, notably because of globalisation
in the 1980s and the outsourcing of services
and production from developed countries to the
developing world. Key milestones have included
the establishment of major professional bodies
and the rapid rise of global capital markets
requiring robust, harmonised reporting.
“More recently, the push toward integrated
reporting and sustainability disclosure has been
especially influential across the Asia-Pacific
region,” Sidhu says. “Given the environmental
and other sustainability challenges that we face,
the role of accountants has become much more
important in terms of sustainability and
environmental reporting.”
HONG KONG
MALAYSIA
SINGAPORE
1981
1983
1984
1985
1988
IBM releases a personal
computer that allows
third-party hardware
and software add-ons,
sparking a personal
computer revolution
and shifting accounting
tasks from manual to
electronic tabulation.
The application
Lotus 1-2-3 is
released, handling
larger spreadsheets
than VisiCalc and
fuelling sales of
the IBM personal
computer.
The Australian Society
of Accountants
launches its first
national TV campaign
Not Your Average
Accountant to
promote its
designation.
Microsoft Excel is
unveiled, making
automation of simple
and common accounting
tasks faster and easier.
The Australian Society
of Accountants
establishes its
Singapore, Malaysia
and Hong Kong
branches.
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