Chartered Accountants Ireland is the new
operating name for Ireland’s oldest and largest accountancy
body.
The Institute of Chartered
Accountants in Ireland, the name the organisation adopted when it
formed in 1888, will remain the legal title.
The name change is accompanied by a new logo
and the opening of a new training and administrative
headquarters.
Chartered Accountants Ireland chief executive
Pat Costello told The Accountant the institute has been considering
a name change for a few years. The change primarily relates to the
organisation’s positioning in the domestic market.
“Marketing is an important aspect of
maintaining our position in Ireland,” he said. “Looking at the
market place and the competition in the market place, there was no
doubt that while the chartered accountant brand was extremely
strong, the way we were presenting it was too long and there were
many different variations of it.”
The institute wanted both a shorter name and a
single identity. Previously it was known as the Institute of
Chartered Accountants in Ireland and the ICAI. The various district
societies also had distinct names.
Uniformity
The names of the district societies
have also been aligned, for example there is the Chartered
Accountants Leinster Society and the Chartered Accountants Ulster
Society.
The name change also facilitated an updated
logo.
“It would have been very difficult to do
anything with the old logo as it had seven words on it,” Costello
said. “It was very difficult to put that up against any other logo,
not just another professional body. It was always going to look
weak.”
The institute took an evolutionary rather than
revolutionary approach to the logo, for example by maintaining the
same colours.
The district societies will all adopt
variations of the logo, which is a change from the previous
situation where they were all very different.
The third part of the revamp is a new
headquarters and training centre that can accommodate up to 1,300
students or members. This will open officially in October.