IT File - Enter exams online.

ACCA is to allow students to enter examinations and pay fees and subscriptions via the internet. Students can access ACCA’s secure e-business site, view their examination options for the next examination session in June 2000, make their choice and pay online. ACCA head of student affairs Mark Protherough said: ‘This development will improve both the speed and accuracy of examination entries and, by reducing ACCA’s dependence on paper flow, will enable us to offer an even better service to students.’ The move builds on the introduction last year of arrangements to allow members to maintain their personal details and pay their fees and subscriptions over the internet. ACCA also launched a new global website, ten country specific sites and made major investments in document imaging and customer relationship management systems. The association, which has been working to develop the new services with Cable & Wireless, is now planning to extend the service by offering a new international webmail facility. Protherough said ACCA plans to enable new students to register electronically through its website later this year. ACCA has also set itself up as an internet service provider following the launch of its new fee-free web access service, ACCANet. CDs are being mailed to all 90,000 of ACCA’s members and students in the UK, with the March issues of Accounting & Business and the ACCA Students’ Newsletter. The service is also downloadable from www.acca.org.uk. Ross Midgley, ACCA’s IT director said: ‘ACCANet is aimed principally at ACCA members and students. It not only provides them with a fee-free internet service, it also stresses their connection with a global professional body. ‘Instead of having to use e-mail and website addresses which associate them with a supermarket or a tabloid newspaper, they now have the option to let everyone know where they belong.’