National Bank of Ukraine removes PwC from auditor registry for inaccurate audit of PrivatBank
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has removed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) from the registry of auditing firms which have the right to audit banks.
The relevant decision was made on July 20 by the NBU’s executive board on the basis of a request from the Committee on matters of bank auditing, the NBU’s press service reported.
The announcement points out that the reason for the decision was the fact that PWC affirmed inaccurate information about the financial-economic activity of PrivatBank (Kyiv), in particular, the amount of credit risk and regulatory capital.
“PWC’s conclusions did not reflect the real risks of Privatbank’s operation, which served as the reason for recognizing the financial institution as insolvent, its nationalization and the significant state expenses on capitalization,” the report states.
The regulator recalls that the NBU has the right to exclude companies from the list of bank auditors according to the law “on the National Bank of Ukraine” and the law “on banks and bank operation”, and this is also specified in the statutes and regulations of the NBU.
Furthermore, the practice of excluding a regulatory company from auditing banks corresponds to the international approach and is based on the 27th principle of the Core Principles of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.