The National Bank of Ukraine has approved amendments to the procedure of keeping the Register of Audit Firms. This sets additional registration requirements to audit firms and their employees. The new requirements:

• increase the minimum contract period of providing audit services to a bank to two years
• increase the minimum number of certified bank auditors to three persons (from two) and raise the professional qualification level of the audit firm’s staff: not less than two staffers must have IFRS certificates issued by specific professional certification organizations that hold membership at the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)
• envisage that the audit firm must meet certain technical conditions (computer hardware and software) and have premises, either own or rented, for performing its audit activity.

Stipulate that the audit firm must be registered by the Audit Chamber of Ukraine in its Register of Audit Firms and Individual Auditors, in the section listing audit firms that meet the criteria for performing mandatory audits. The mandatory audit criteria include:

• Details of a professional liability insurance agreement are available.
• Check of the audit quality assurance system passed successfully.
• Public information about the audit firm’s operation available on its web-site, etc.

In addition, the amendments have expanded the list of grounds to reject audit firms’ requests for registration, introducing changes to the Register, and extending certificate validity. Reasons for excluding an audit firm from the Register have also been reviewed. The requirement of attesting documents with the audit firm’s stamp has been canceled.

Those changes have been adopted with NBU Board Resolution No.110 On Amendments to the Regulation on Keeping the Register of Audit Firms Authorized to Audit Banks dated 10 November 2017, taking effect on the following day after its official publication, except Section II paragraph 2.1 subparagraph 10 of Regulation No.410, which will come into force on 1 November 2018 (this subparagraph lists certificates that confirm IFRS qualification).