Special-purpose Certificates Relating to Investments
It may be noted that pursuant to RBI’s circulars, issued from time to time, banks require their central statutory auditors to issue the following certificates regarding investments of the bank (in addition to their main audit report and the long form audit report).
(i) Certificate on reconciliation of securities by the bank (both on its own Investment Account as well as PMS clients’ account). The reconciliation is to be presented in a given format.
(ii) Certificate on compliance by the bank in key areas of prudential and other guidelines relating to such transactions issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
The auditor may consider relying on the work done during the course of audit for the purposes of such certificates. As per the Master circular, the certificate should reach the Regional Office of the DBS, RBI, under whose jurisdiction the bank’s head office is located within one month from the close of the accounting year, and thus for banks whose accounts have not been audited by the stated period may issue the certificate based on the un audited books of account.