Internal Audit Assistance

Avantage Reply was asked to support the Chief Internal Auditor in its daily tasks such as, the follow-up on (open) audit points, the audit of individual activities, the compilation of the yearly Long Form Report shared with the External Auditor and Regulator (CSSF) and lastly the design of models to assess the risks in the different areas of the banking group.

Solution

In order to support the Chief Internal Auditor as best as possible, regular meetings were put in place to share last updates from both sides, as a lot of autonomy was given to Avantage Reply to conduct its assigned tasks.

Avantage Reply achieved success by challenging the different departments in order to validate the proposed closing of the internal and external audit recommendations. This enabled to us to purge the audit recommendation database and produce positive report to the Audit Committee. A reduction of open Audit issues was required due to the number of outstanding recommendations. Avantage Reply has managed to close issues thanks to testing and analysis of supporting documentation produced or duly chased up.

Another part of the assignment was to perform specific audit which targeted activities conducted in the Branch. This assignment was realized in collaboration with the Branch employees. Then, the drafting of the final audit report has been done by Avantage Reply and validated by the Chief Internal Auditor.

Avantage Reply also assisted the Chief Internal Auditor updating and reviewing the Long Form Report. After having assigned the specific sections to the right persons, we have had to gather all the parts, review them and control the consistence of the document. Avantage Reply also participated to the writing of the Internal Audit section.

Finally, our company was able to assist in the design and the creation of a Risk Model for the assessment of the different areas of the banking group. The model consists of sections and questions per business line. Each section was weighted according to the importance that the Chief Internal Auditor gave to the individual sections of each business line. A dashboard is used to automatically give a high-level overview of the risks per business line.

Results

Overall, Avantage Reply has been able to offer a full service Internal Audit solution, ranging from setting up an audit schedule, monitoring risk and following up on open issues. The collaboration has been as effective and tailor made as to perfectly meet the needs and expectations of the Chief Internal Auditor.