Bank Audit: A Call for Paradigm Shift

This paper demonstrates, using of empirical evidence, that shareholders of non-bank companies are likely to suffer more losses than creditors of the same companies in the event of failure of such companies. On the other hand, banks’ depositors are likely to suffer more losses than banks’ shareholders in failure of such banks. Consequently, the paper calls for a paradigm shift in banks audits and proposes that banks’ auditors should report to the two groups: shareholders and depositors; and an amendment to the relevant provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (1990) and the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (1991)