Audits getting better, FMA says

AUCKLAND: The Financial Markets Authority says the quality of audits in New Zealand is improving, although it wants more engagement from the business community.

In its audit quality monitoring report, released this week, the regulator reviewed 27 audit files from seven registered audit firms. It said the most audit firms had successfully implemented plans to address findings from previous reviews, but there were still inconsistencies in the quality of individual audits.

The review found that 20% of firms had fully addressed the findings since the previous review, 63% had shown improvement by implementing changes but those were not fully effective across all reviewed files, and 17% had shown no improvements.

‘‘We’re a little bit happy, in a qualified way,’’ director of capital markets Garth Stanish said. ‘‘We’ve only had this regime in place for five years, which makes it reasonably immature in international terms, and we have definitely seen an improvement in terms of the systems, the policies, the procedures.’’ — BusinessDesk