ISLAMABAD: The Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) said on Wednesday that in order to promote ease of doing business, Audit Oversight Board (AOB) has introduced an online audit firm registration system.
Two years ago, the AOB and the SECP signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate for effective oversight of the auditing profession and regulation of corporate entities.
After the introduction of the system, audit firms will be able to provide the required information by filling an online registration form instead of sending papers back and forth.
Besides, the registration system shall facilitate both new registration and annual submission of data by the audit firms. Once the registration database has been populated by a firm, the workload for annual submission of information shall be greatly reduced.
This shall also make it easy for audit firms to review and communicate any changes in their particulars to AOB.
This system has been developed using the expertise of local IT professionals and storage services of National Telecom Corporation. It is currently undergoing user acceptance testing and shall go live in a month’s time.
AOB is an independent regulator established by the parliament to oversee the audit quality of public interest companies, which include listed companies. Registration of audit firms is a core function of audit regulators internationally. Only the auditors registered with AOB may audit the financial statements of a public interest company. Currently, there are 102 audit firms with 312 audit partners registered with AOB.
