Matérias relevantes de auditoria

: bancos e instituições financeiras de crédito em Portugal

Abstract

The criticism of the audit report, arising from numerous financial scandals, includes the lack of transparency and clarity of the report, leading to a loss of confidence, by users of financial statements, in the work performed by auditors. As a result, it was created a new audit report that, through the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 701, now has a section related to the communication of Key Audit Matters (KAM) with the purpose of building the report more informative and useful for decision making. In this regard, the present study aimed to analyze the KAM disclosed in the audit reports of banks and credit financial institutions in Portugal, with reference to the fiscal years from 2018 to 2021, as well as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on KAM reporting. Therefore, it was performed a qualitative-quantitative research. Initially, it was analyzed the audit reports of the sample institutions, consisting of 31 institutions in 2018 and 2019, and 32 institutions in 2020 and 2021. A total of 82 KAM was disclosed in 2018 and 2020, and 78 KAM in 2019 and 2021. In addition, the respective KAM were clustered into 12 categories in order to identify the most frequent ones by type of institution, as well as by audit firm, and to simplify the analysis regarding the implications of Covid-19. The results obtained show that auditors, in their audit reports for 2020 and 2021, take into account the impacts caused by the pandemic, referring to the uncertainty generated by it, as well as the subjectivity and complexity of possible additional procedures to be adopted in order to mitigate the effects of Covid-19.

Date of Award	3 Jul 2023
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria José Martins Lourenço da Fonseca (Supervisor)