Standard Chartered puts audit out to tender

Standard Chartered has become the latest bank to put its audit out to tender.

The global bank has been audited by KPMG for the past 40 years and in 2012 paid a total of £18.7m to KPMG in services fees.

In its 2012 Annual Report, the bank said it was going to put its audit out to tender in 2013 to keep "in line with the UK Financial Reporting Council's (FRC) recent recommendations."

These recommendations involved updating the Corporate Governance Code to introduce 10 year mandatory re tendering.

Standard Chartered said in a statement "while we are entirely happy with our existing auditors, KPMG, we acknowledge that it is prudent to benchmark the services we receive against other market leading providers."

When contacted by the International Accounting Bulletin, KPMG issued the following statement: "we have been invited to tender and are putting in a bid. We are happy to compete on the quality of our audit work.

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