NFRA forms audit quality, assurance and technology advisory committee

ET Bureau: India’s National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) has constituted a nine-member Advisory Committee on Audit Quality, Assurance and Technology. This has professionals from financial regulation, corporate finance, audit, insurance, technology and independent directorship. Officials said the NFRA wants audit quality examined “not only as a professional-standard issue but also as a governance and technology challenge.”

“NFRA is preparing for audits in which financial reporting risks increasingly arise from technology environments, data security and automated decision-making,” a senior official told ET.

Those on the the committee include Amit Jain, technical architect at iSPIRT Foundation, former Securities and Exchange Board of India whole-time member Ananth Narayan, Hindalco Industries CFO Bharat Goenka, adviser and ESG contributor Milind Sarwate.

Also read | 2.7 ka 7.8, 7.8 ka 2.8...: Behind the big GDP data debate

Sify Technologies executive director and CFO M P Vijay Kumar, Nucleon Research chairman Robin Banerjee, Axis Max Life Insurance chief assurance executive Sanjeev Sood, independent director Sharmila Abhay Karve, and former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Shyamala Gopinath are on the committee.

Also read | El Nino will linger longer. What it means for India

An official statement said this committee will advise NFRA on applying auditing, quality-control and quality-management standards, identifying sectors and emerging risks for thematic scrutiny, and addressing implementation questions. Its remit also covers the governance and risks of data analytics, automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning in audits, along with cybersecurity, cloud systems and the audit implications of ERP platforms, APIs, system logs, digital payments, blockchain and distributed ledgers.