CBOK Stakeholder Report: Achieving Excellence in Assurance

Achieving Excellence in Assurance, Strategic Risk Insights, and More
Viewpoints From Financial Services Stakeholders

Global macroeconomic uncertainty and rock-bottom interest rates, soaring regulatory expectations, cybersecurity threats and attacks, and other disruptive innovations are all examples of the staggering collection of market and regulatory challenges that confront the Financial Services Industry (FSI), making it the most demanding sector in which internal auditors operate.

Amid the industry’s growing macroeconomic, regulatory, procedural, and technological complexity, FSI internal audit must fulfill its core mission of delivering in assurance excellence. Yet internal auditors must do more. Effective assurance alone no longer guarantees success.

The results of this global survey of stakeholders — specifically, executives and board members who work closely with internal auditors — reveal best practices internal auditors in the FSI should consider in their quest to continually improve performance and deliver more value to their organizations.

Among the key findings:

• Internal audit reporting structure, the chief audit executive’s (CAE’s) relationships with the boards and the executive teams, and the entire function’s communication skill and style represent key success factors.
• Assurance is paramount. The consultative, value-added work that stakeholders clearly want auditors to deliver cannot detract from assurance.
• Assurance work is most valuable when it is aligned with the strategic risks of the organization and provides credible challenges to the effectiveness of risk management activities within the organization.

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