The Price waterhouse Coopers (PWC), Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young earned a total of N6.1billion from 11 banks as audit fees for 2020.
Data from banks’ corporate reports show that the amount was earned as the cumulative audit fees of 11 Nigerian banks including Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank, Stanbic IBTC, FBN Holdigns Plc, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Fidelity, Sterling, First City Monument Bank and Ecobank.
The auditors likely made more money auditing banks as figures in this report reflect only those highlighted in the banks’ financial reports. Those not published, alongside services retained by unquoted banks, are not covered.
Auditors are financial professionals who are responsible for reviewing and evaluating corporate organization’s records to ensure accuracy, honesty and compliance. The financial auditors perform either internal or external audits.
An audit can be conducted quarterly, bi-annual, and annual and auditors must be changed at least every 10 years to conserve auditors’ independence.
PwC received the highest earnings of N2.98 billion from auditing three of the big banks (FBN Holdings, UBA, GTBank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank.)
PwC earned N786 million from Zenith Bank, N 1.179 billion from Guaranty Trust Bank and N1.017 billion from Access Bank.
KPMG was next as the audit firm earned N1.33 billion from two commercial banks, Stanbic IBTC and First Bank. The firm earned N950 million from First Bank and N376 million from Stanbic IBTC.
Ernst and Young (E&Y), another of the big 4, also earned N1.15 billion auditing 3 banks out of the 11 banks on the list namely; Fidelity, UBA and Union Bank.
The firm earned N200 million from Fidelity, N773 million from UBA and N179 million from Union Bank.
Deloitte in its case generated N674 million from two commercial banks: Sterling Bank and First City Monument Bank. Sterling Bank paid Deloitte N250 million for its audit services, while the company earned N424 million from First City Monument Bank. EcoBank did not indicate how much it paid its auditors, Deloitte and Grant Thornton.