Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Expert chartered accountants have said that they are now expected to conduct audits of banks as forensic audits.
Senior chartered accountants threw light on the ways and means of auditing banks on the concluding day of the two-day national conference on bank audits held at the CA auditorium. It was hosted by Indore branch of ICAI.
Chartered accountant Jayesh Kala, who came from Mumbai, said that audit has a very important place in the banking system. Banking facilities have increased with the introduction of core banking system (CBS), but the risk has also increased. Earlier in branch banking, if abnormal behaviour was seen in any account, then the branch would confirm it, but with CBS this is not possible.
Kala said that fraud in GST bills can be detected during bank audits, but the auditor has to be very sharp as it cannot be caught by computers.
Now, the RBI is engaged in upgrading the entire banking system in such a way that most of the information is available in the system itself, but in reality, no matter how strong the system is, there are many mistakes which can be caught only through an audit. A wrong entry of 0.01% in the banking system can have a huge impact.
Chartered accountant Nayan Kothari said that all the certificates need to be checked carefully as they are not computerised.
Chartered accountant Hitesh Pomal said that in the case of agricultural advance, if there is no credit for three years, that account will have to be classified as NPA. The role of the auditor increases in branches where only internal audit has been done.
A brainstorming session was organised to conclude the conference in which the panel of senior members Santosh Deshmukh, Vikram Gupte, and Jayesh Kala answered various questions on practical issues related to bank audits.
Kirti Joshi, Anand Jain, Atishya Khasgiwala, Amitesh Jain etc were present in the programme.
