Internal Audit
Promote stakeholder confidence by addressing risk with an internal audit.
Establish internal control structures, support or improve your internal audit function, or successfully prepare for and navigate your regulatory safety and soundness examination so your organization can achieve its goals and improve bottom-line results.
Our professionals can help develop a plan based on your institution’s unique risk environment with frequencies tied to the inherent and operating risks associated with your operations. Co-sourcing, outsourcing, or augmenting your staff, we can help deepen your team’s experience and extend capacity to meet increasing regulatory demands and business objectives.
Prevent Risk Based on Your Unique Environment
Leveraging a third-party internal audit advisor can bring a range of benefits to your organization including:
- An independent, open-minded view of the control systems and processes that exist within your company
- In-depth understanding of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) control framework and the ability to coordinate organization-wide implementation
- Achieve cost-effectiveness by leveraging industry knowledge, procedures and tools, and other ready to implement solutions
- Efficient communication between management and external independent auditors
- Reduced duplication of efforts through strong coordination and cooperation between auditors due to understanding of auditor requirements and procedures
- Achieve audit committee and investor internal audit expectations
- Reduce excessive and unpredictable internal audit costs
- Proactively identify internal control problems
- Eliminate high fixed internal audit costs
- Eliminate insufficient coverage of IT, tax, SEC and industry-specific compliance areas
We provide support for a range of operations and solutions including:
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) and Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) control testing
- Regulatory compliance audits
- Internal control reviews
- Branch operations/branch audit
- Deposit and lending operations reviews
- Human resources, payroll and benefits, commission payments
- Accounting and finance including general ledger controls, accounts payable, fixed assets, bank-owned life insurance, and investment portfolios
- Electronic banking services including online banking and electronic banking, automated clearing house (ACH), wire transfer operations, remote deposit capture
- Quality assurance reviews
- Risk assessments including enterprise-wide, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), regulatory compliance, and others
- Asset liability management and interest rate risk
- BSA and anti-money laundering (AML) reviews
- Model validations
Key Focus Areas
Explore how our assessments can proactively address risk in key concern areas.
Risk Services and Governance
Enhance efficiency, transparency, and safety while meeting regulatory requirements with a comprehensive internal audit program in place.
We take a holistic approach to assess and provide guidance on:
- Design and operating effectiveness of current internal controls and segregation of duties across your organization
- The effectiveness of governance activities including organizational structure and personnel, policies, procedures and standards, alignment between strategic goals and key performance indicators, and management of third-party vendors
- Strategies and control processes over your organization’s enterprise risk management (ERM) program
- Implementation or updates to your internal audit risk assessments and internal audit plan development
- Compliance with control-driven regulations such as FDICIA
- Review of AML programs for compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), USA PATRIOT Act, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
Operational Audits
Operational audits examine how an organization conducts business—analyzing its processes, procedures, and systems.
Surface improvement areas to make your operations efficient, productive, and effective through an operational audit that examines how your organization conducts its business.
Our risk-based approach to scoping and delivering internal audit procedures is designed to evaluate the design and operating effectiveness of your internal control framework.
Operational audits assess:
- Loan origination and servicing
- Deposit operations
- Human resources, payroll, and benefits
- Branch operations
- Accounting and finance
- Investment portfolios
- Asset liability management and interest rate risk (ALM/IRR) reviews
- Regulatory reporting and quality assurance reviews
- IT general controls review
Model Validations
Assess the accuracy and effectiveness of the mathematical models used in financial and risk management through a model validation that can focus on areas such as Asset Liability Management (ALM), Interest Rate Risk (IRR), Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL), loan origination software, and others.
Federal regulators have provided guidance that financial institutions should complete model validations on a periodic basis with frequencies depending on the complexity and risk of the model.
Our validation procedures, can help:
- Examine and validate the integrity of the data within the model
- Determine the operational effectiveness of rules, scenarios, and logic utilized by the model
- Evaluate if current model thresholds and assumptions adequately reflect your institution’s risk profile
- Test overall model performance through back-testing and sensitivity analysis on significant inputs
- Assess key internal controls surrounding governance, operations, and monitoring of the model
- Confirm implemented model governance procedures are consistent with regulatory guidance
Electronic Banking Services
As the rapid pace of digital transformation and electronic banking evolves so do the nature and scope of its risks.
Protect your organization with a review of relevant operating policies and procedures to verify they’re updated for the unique character and principal risks associated with alternative delivery channels, including electronic advertising.
Assessments also review if all applicable policies address any new products, services, or delivery channels impacted by electronic capabilities, as well as policies and procedures governing access to and the disclosure of customers’ confidential information.
We review appropriate operating policies and procedures established to address the following issues for customer activities:
- Online banking, electronic banking, and mobile banking
- Automated clearing house (ACH)
- Wire transfer operations
- Remote deposit capture
Risk Services and Governance
Enhance efficiency, transparency, and safety while meeting regulatory requirements with a comprehensive internal audit program in place.
We take a holistic approach to assess and provide guidance on:
- Design and operating effectiveness of current internal controls and segregation of duties across your organization
- The effectiveness of governance activities including organizational structure and personnel, policies, procedures and standards, alignment between strategic goals and key performance indicators, and management of third-party vendors
- Strategies and control processes over your organization’s enterprise risk management (ERM) program
- Implementation or updates to your internal audit risk assessments and internal audit plan development
- Compliance with control-driven regulations such as FDICIA
- Review of AML programs for compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), USA PATRIOT Act, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
Operational Audits
Operational audits examine how an organization conducts business—analyzing its processes, procedures, and systems.
Surface improvement areas to make your operations efficient, productive, and effective through an operational audit that examines how your organization conducts its business.
Our risk-based approach to scoping and delivering internal audit procedures is designed to evaluate the design and operating effectiveness of your internal control framework.
Operational audits assess:
- Loan origination and servicing
- Deposit operations
- Human resources, payroll, and benefits
- Branch operations
- Accounting and finance
- Investment portfolios
- Asset liability management and interest rate risk (ALM/IRR) reviews
- Regulatory reporting and quality assurance reviews
- IT general controls review
Model Validations
Assess the accuracy and effectiveness of the mathematical models used in financial and risk management through a model validation that can focus on areas such as Asset Liability Management (ALM), Interest Rate Risk (IRR), Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL), loan origination software, and others.
Federal regulators have provided guidance that financial institutions should complete model validations on a periodic basis with frequencies depending on the complexity and risk of the model.
Our validation procedures, can help:
- Examine and validate the integrity of the data within the model
- Determine the operational effectiveness of rules, scenarios, and logic utilized by the model
- Evaluate if current model thresholds and assumptions adequately reflect your institution’s risk profile
- Test overall model performance through back-testing and sensitivity analysis on significant inputs
- Assess key internal controls surrounding governance, operations, and monitoring of the model
- Confirm implemented model governance procedures are consistent with regulatory guidance
Electronic Banking Services
As the rapid pace of digital transformation and electronic banking evolves so do the nature and scope of its risks.
Protect your organization with a review of relevant operating policies and procedures to verify they’re updated for the unique character and principal risks associated with alternative delivery channels, including electronic advertising.
Assessments also review if all applicable policies address any new products, services, or delivery channels impacted by electronic capabilities, as well as policies and procedures governing access to and the disclosure of customers’ confidential information.
We review appropriate operating policies and procedures established to address the following issues for customer activities:
- Online banking, electronic banking, and mobile banking
- Automated clearing house (ACH)
- Wire transfer operations
- Remote deposit capture
Deeply immersed in the financial services industry, we serve a range of organizations including credit unions, trust companies, alternative investment companies and broker-dealers, specialty finance, fintech, mortgage companies, and more. Our firm’s Financial Services Consulting Practice is comprised of a dedicated team of professionals who focus entirely on providing internal audit services to financial institutions.
We develop customized plans based on your institution’s unique risk environment and business model with frequencies tied to the inherent and operating risks associated with your operations and larger sector trends and challenges.
We proactively determine appropriate solutions that help build foundations for long-term success—providing strategic recommendations, tool, templates, and more so you’re prepared to embrace and stay ahead of change.
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