RA professional certificate

An RA professional certificate is a qualified certificate proving the signer holds the protected Dutch RA (registered accountant) title.

An RA professional certificate is a professional certificate issued to a natural person who is entitled to carry the Dutch RA title - registeraccountant, the legally protected title for a person who has qualified as an accountant through NBA (Koninklijke Nederlandse Beroepsorganisatie van Accountants) registration; this RA is unrelated to the registration authority (RA) role in PKI, which happens to share the same abbreviation. The RA title on its own does not authorise the holder to perform statutory audits: signing a statutory audit opinion additionally requires acting through an audit firm holding the required licence from the AFM (Autoriteit Financiële Markten) under the Wet toezicht accountantsorganisaties (Wta), so many registered accountants who carry the RA title never sign such opinions. The certificate states the holder's name together with the RA title, so anyone verifying it sees both at once.

The title itself is only granted on registration in the accountantsregister, which is the authentic source the QTSP checks before it may put the title on a certificate. This sits on top of the ordinary identity verification every qualified certificate requires - confirming the person is who they claim to be is a separate step from confirming they may use the title.

A document signed with the certificate - as a qualified electronic signature - therefore shows in one step who signed and that the signatory was entitled to sign as a registered auditor, which matters for audit opinions and other documents where the professional capacity of the signatory is part of what is being relied on.

Note: the RA title is not permanent. Registration in the accountantsregister can be suspended or withdrawn under the Wet tuchtrechtspraak accountants (Wtra), for example after a disciplinary measure, so the certificate has to keep up with the register rather than being issued once and left alone: the QTSP's CP/CPS governs how and when it revokes the certificate if the title lapses, and may include a recheck of the register at renewal.