Bank Audit Requests

Thomson Reuters Confirmation partnership:

Thomson Reuters Confirmation is a long-standing commercial partner of UK Finance. Our joint mission is to help auditors and banks achieve secure, efficient and standardised digital confirmations.

Thomson Reuters Confirmation delivers a secure, encrypted and globally trusted platform used by 4,000+ banks and departments worldwide to streamline audit confirmations.

"Confirmation has got such benefits in terms of speed... The time saving on an audit could literally be a day of a chargeable staff member’s time."

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Audit confirmations and why they matter

Audit confirmations provide independent, third-party verification of key financial information including cash, loans, liabilities, and banking relationships. They reduce audit risk, enhance accuracy, and help safeguard the integrity of the financial reporting. 

The Confirmation platform enables secure, encrypted, and validated digital exchange of confirmation requests, reducing fraud risk, ensuring compliance with audit standards minimising manual errors, and accelerating the overall process for all parties.

Auditing standards and guidance

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is committed to protecting and improving audit and reporting quality. As part of this, there are three auditing standards that support auditors in obtaining external confirmations:

• ISA (UK) 330 – The Auditor’s Responses to Assessed Risks (Revised July 2017, updated May 2022)
• ISA (UK) 505 – External Confirmations (Revised October 2023)
• ISA (UK) 240 - The auditor’s responsibilities relating to fraud in an audit of financial statements (Revised May 2021, updated May 2022)

The key guidance in ISA (UK) 330 and ISA (UK) 505 read:

• When using external confirmation procedures, the auditor shall maintain control over external confirmation requests.
• Responses to confirmation requests provide more relevant and reliable audit evidence when confirmation requests are sent to a confirming party the auditor believes is knowledgeable about the information to be confirmed.
• Determining that requests are properly addressed includes testing the validity of some or all of the addresses on confirmation requests before they are sent out.
• Responses received electronically, for example by facsimile or electronic mail, involve risks as to reliability because proof of origin and authority of the respondent may be difficult to establish, and alterations may be difficult to detect.
• If a confirming party uses a third party to coordinate and provide responses to confirmation requests, the auditor may perform procedures to address the risks that:
  • (a) The response may not be from the proper source;
  • (b) A respondent may not be authorised to respond; and
  • (c) The integrity of the transmission may have been compromised.
• An external confirmation is defined as audit evidence obtained as a direct written response to the auditor 'from a third party (the confirming party), in paper form, or by electronic or other medium' which ‘could include auditors directly accessing information held by third parties through web portals, software interfaces or other digital means’.

In addition to the ISA (UK) 330 and ISA (UK) 505, in May 2021, the FRC revised its guidance on the auditor’s responsibilities relating to fraud in an audit of financial statements. The updated guidance reads:

• An auditor conducting an audit in accordance with ISAs (UK) is responsible for obtaining reasonable assurance that the financial statements taken as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or error.
• The auditor is responsible for maintaining professional scepticism throughout the audit, considering the potential for management override of controls and recognizing the fact that audit procedures that are effective for detecting error may not be effective in detecting fraud.
• The auditor shall evaluate whether the information obtained from the other risk assessment procedures and related activities performed indicates that one or more fraud risk factors are present.

UK Finance commercial partnership and resources 

UK Finance collaborates with trusted partners such as Thomson Reuters to provide solutions that support audit quality, operational efficiency and secure digital interactions between financial institutions and auditors. 

Bank Report Contacts List: A directory of key bank contacts used by auditors to initiate audit confirmation requests. 

UK Banks Using Thomson Reuters Confirmation: A list of UK banks that use the Confirmation platform to manage and respond to audit confirmation requests.