This article has been published by Audit Analytics. It is about the second annual survey we performed on the auditor’s reporting of key audit matters (KAMs) in the European banking sector since KAMs became required by EU law and international standards in 2017.

One of the main goals of the survey is to benchmark and compare the data from the banking sector, year-over-year. The survey, which highlights over 60 banks that own the vast majority of assets in the European banking sector, focuses on the average number and main topics of KAMs that were reported during the year. More specifically, it takes a deeper dive into the reasons for communicating KAMs and some of the challenges that arise during this process.

In addition, the survey looks at the clarity and presentation of the KAM disclosures. In a year-over-year analysis of the 62 audit reports within the sector, there was a slight decrease in the average number of KAMs per report between 2017 and 2018, from 4.4 to 4.2, respectively.

These averages are much higher in comparison to the average number of KAMs across all industries. As cited in the survey, Audit Analytics found an average of 2.7 KAMs in 2018 for all industries; excluding the banking sector resulted in an average of 2.6 KAMs per audit report.

Please read the full article here.

Source: Audit Analytics