FINANCIAL AUDITING IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY – AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Abstract

Public confidence in banks is critical to the survival and growth of the banking sector. The audit of banks' financial statements contributes to building this confidence and is thus of great importance. However, most auditing literature excludes financial institutions from samples because unlike other industries, the financial sector has its own and different financial reporting regulations and frameworks. Our paper aims at filling in this literature gap by offering an overview of various characteristics of auditing the banking sector. The data is extracted from the database “Audit Analytics” and spans over the period 2000-2021. The various samples analyzed in the present paper comprise bank holding companies around the world that are listed on markets such as NASDAQ, NYSE or OTC. Our objective was to depict the status-quo of several delicate issues in the relationship of banks with their auditors, namely: going concern issues disclosed in the audit report, late filing of financial statements, restatements and auditor change due to resignation or dismissal.