Financial institutions’ internal audit departments are under ever increasing pressure from regulatory bodies to become more involved in their company operations and conduct. Regulators want the internal audit departments to review all aspects of their firms’ ongoing business activities as well as projects implementations.

Best practices include having internal audit department representatives participate in a review process before a project commences. The entire set of business requirements and technical specification should be reviewed and validated against proper compliance and control protocols.

In situations where projects are designed to answer regulatory requirements, it is advisable to have an independent auditor participate in these reviews. This practice insures that once the processes are live, the regulators that serve as ultimate reviewers and auditors will not find problems, and that costly changes to the systems and processes will not be required.

---