Pratik Puprediwar

How are Chartered Accountants different from Chartered Financial Analysts?

What is the major diffrence


by Pratik Puprediwar
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RE: How are Chartered Accountants different from Chartered Financial Analysts?

Dr. Anand Wadadekar, PhD
Dr. Anand Wadadekar, PhD

Hello There! Glad to see you approach CareerGuide.com for this unique and very important query.


Your query is very right and it is common phenomena to compare the courses with one another.

I am an Educationist and have been counselling students from the commerce / management field for more than seven years now and also have been into teaching and writing a lot on career management for many years.

Chartered Accountancy (CAs) and Chartered Financial Analysts (CFAs) have a great difference between them. Chartered Accountancy is a course which makes a person specialised in accountancy, book keeping, audit, taxation, statutory compliances related to finance, cost, etc. Chartered Financial Analyst is a course which makes a person specialised in financial statement analysis, risk management, finance control, financial systems, financial strategy based on financial analysis, balance sheet analysis, etc. Chartered Accountant is a person who focuses on the accounting, taxation and audit part of the organisation while the Chartered Financial Analyst focuses on analysis meant for decision, strategy making of the organisation. The salary difference is also big in CAs and CFAs.

I would say that CFAs have more skillful work than CAs. Chartered Accountants as per the Companies Act and other laws of SEBI, RBI ,etc enjoy a statutory position in an organisation and all Chartered Acocuntants are covered by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). ICAI is a staturoty body enacted under the The Chartered Accountants Act 1949. Chartered Financial Analysts are on the other side do not have a statutory position in an organisation and are also not covered under any Act of Parliament. Chartered Accountants need to sign the legal documents like Annual Return of the company, other audit reports, taxation reports, etc., where as Chartered Financial Analysts are not required to sign under any clause or law. Therefore legally both, the CAs and CFAs are distinct and separate and have entirely different domain of work.

As far as career choice is concerned, there are many students who do Chartered Accountancy as well Chartered Financial Analyst course simulteneously or one after the other. CA course is run by ICAI and CFA course is run by CFA Institute United States with offices in India too.

Hope this was useful.






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