Public sector banks to get autonomy on appointment of auditors

NEW DELHI: The government today said that public sector banks would get autonomy in selection and appointment Statutory Central Auditors (SCAs) from next fiscal.

"In order to give autonomy to the Public Sector Banks (PSBs) on the issue of selection and appointment of Statutory Central Auditors (SCAs), the work of selection and appointment of SCAs henceforth, has been delegated to individual PSBs for the year 2014-15 onwards," an official statement said.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will provide the selection criteria for selecting SCAs to PSBs, it said.

The office of Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) will provide the list of eligible auditors available with them and PSBs can make selection out of the list with the prior approval of RBI, it said.

At the moment, auditors are being appointed by a panel headed by Additional Secretary of Department of Financial Services, Chairman Indian Banks' Association and representative of CAG.

Number of statutory auditors varies based on the size of the balance sheet of a bank. For example State Bank of India had 14 statutory auditors for the financial year 2013-14.

Punjab National Bank had 6 statutory auditors while United Bank of India had 4 auditors.