Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank (APGVB) has announced a call for Chartered Accountant firms to apply for empanelment as concurrent auditors for the 2024-25 period. Eligible firms must be either partnerships or limited liability partnerships, registered with the RBI, and have experience auditing at least three public sector or regional rural banks. Firms must not have ongoing inquiries by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and should not be involved in the statutory audit of APGVB. The maximum number of branches an individual firm can audit is five. Applications must be submitted in the prescribed format by September 9, 2024. Selected firms will be responsible for various audit tasks, including income verification and compliance checks, and must adhere to strict confidentiality and performance standards. The audit fee is Rs. 12,000 per branch per month. Further details and the application process are outlined in the notification.
ANDHRA PRADESH GRAMEENA VIKAS BANK
HEAD OFFICE :: WARANGAL
PER & HRD DEPARTMENT
Notification: APGVB/Per&HRD/Empanelment/2024-25/1 Date: 27.08.2024
EMPANELMENT CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT FIRMS FOR CONDUCTING OF CONCURRENT AUDIT AS CONCURRENT AUDITORS AT ANDHRA PRADESH GRAMEENA VIKAS BANK
Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank invites applications on the enclosed application format from Chartered Accountant Firms, who fulfils the eligibility criteria as mentioned herenuder.
Eligibility Criteria For Empanelment Of Chartered Accountant Firms AS Concurrent Auditors
I. The CA firms must meet the following eligibility requirements :
1 Applicant firm should be either a Partnership or a Limited Liability Partnership, already in the panel of the RBI, which is circulated among Banks for statutory Audit of Banks from time to time. Registration of Firm with RBI is mandatory. The Category of the Audit Firm (viz. I, II, III & IV) should be mentioned.
2 Experience as Concurrent Auditors or Statutory Auditors in minimum 3 Public Sector Banks / Regional Rural Banks. While calculating the experience, only experience of the Firm as Statutory and Concurrent Auditor is to be taken and not that of individual partner shall be considered.
3 The firm or its partners have not been the subject of inquiries in the past by the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India as per the provisions of Section 21 of the Chartered Accountants Act,1949, and no such inquiry is pending, initiated, or contemplated by the Institute as on the date of application as well as date of acceptance of assignment
4 Any serious acts of omissions or commissions are noticed in the working of Concurrent Auditors, their appointments shall be cancelled and the fact shall be reported to NABARD and ICA’.
5 Where there are group of firms of Chartered Accountants having common partners, only one of the firms in the group will be eligible for assignment of concurrent audit.
6 The firm would normally be allotted concurrent audit of one branch/ office of the bank but in any case maximum 5 branches/ offices can be allotted.
7 Besides Chartered Accountants, the firm should have other qualified and experienced staff, infrastructure and office within an approachable distance from the location of the auditee branch/office to undertake concurrent audit.
8 The firm which conducts Statutory Audit of the bank shall not be considered for appointment as Concurrent Auditor by the bank during that current financial year and the next year.
9 The firm which has a partner who is also partner of the firm entrusted with the Statutory Audit of the bank shall not be considered for appointment as Concurrent Auditor in the bank. In other words, sister/associate concerns of the firm carrying Statutory Audit of the bank shall not be considered for appointment as Concurrent Auditor of the bank.
10 If any of the Directors of the bank is a partner in a firm, such firm shall not be considered for appointment as Concurrent Auditor.
11 In case the performance of the Concurrent Auditor falls short of the expectation of the management or Audit Committee of Board, the bank shall terminate the assignment of the Concurrent Auditor at any time.
12 At any one point of time, not more than 5 audit assignments of branches / offices would be awarded to a firm.
13 CA Firms which have sufficient number of trained representatives of firm articled Clerk trained by ICAI on Concurrent Audit, Retired Officers of commercial Banks, qualified Chartered Accountants as Partner or Associate or as Staff, who will be available on all working days to attend the Concurrent Audit.
II. OTHER TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT :
1 The Chartered Accountant firm would be responsible to examine and comment on all the areas specified by the Bank/ RBI /NABARD/ Sponsor Bank with regard to audit of branches/ offices.
2 Concurrent Audit work of a branch/ office would include, inter alia, income leakage, verification audit, comments on internal checks, counter checks, system & procedure, documentation, securities, Physical Verification of assets financed by the Bank on random basis and any other special audit assignment(s).
3 Franchise of the audit work will not be permitted under any circumstances. Reporting of such events may result in de-empanelment of the Firm and its constituents.
4 The CA firm or any of its employee shall not, without the Bank’s written consent, disclose the terms of acceptance or any provision thereof or any specification or information furnished by or on behalf of the Bank in connection therewith, to other person or entity unless legally required to do so.
5 The empanelled CA firms selected for the assignment of Concurrent Audit work for a particular branch/ office would be given an offer letter along with the terms and condition for conducting the Concurrent Audit. On receipt of their acceptance of the Bank’s offer they will be given an appointment letter.
6 The Auditors must strictly adhere to the schedule, as may be specified in the letter of offer for performing the assignment including submission of reports.
7 The Bank shall have the right to assign any Concurrent Audit assignment and terminate the arrangement without assigning any reason at its sole discretion.
8 The Bank reserves its right not to accept any or all the Proposals, or to accept or reject a particular Proposal at its sole discretion, without assigning any reasons whatsoever.
9 Any document, other than the offer itself, remains the property of the Bank and all copies thereof shall be returned to the Bank on completion of assignment quired by the Bank.
10 The Auditor shall not, without the Bank’s prior written consent, make use of any of the Bank’s document or information except for purposes of performing the assignment.
11 If there is any change ir: the constitution of the firm or the firm is affected by any statutory obligations/ disqualification, the same should be brought to the notice of the Bank immediately.
12 CA firms to furnish personal details / comply with KYC norms, viz., proof of identity and address proof / contact numbers / contacts in case of emergency, etc., of all the representatives of the firm who visit the Branch / Office, for security reasons.
13 The partners / representatives of CA firms who visit the Branch / Office shall make their presence in a register maintained for the said purpose.
14 CA firms shall liaise with the Branch / Office on a regular basis and provide their periodic audit plan and enable the Branch / Office to furnish / provide documents without affecting loss of a-;, idit man days for CA firms and / or customer service is not affected in the Branch / Office.
15 The representatives of the CA firms shall not enter prohibited / restricted areas, viz., IT server room, record room, strong room, locker room, cash department/ lockers and / or any other security related areas without the prior approval from the Branch Manager.
16 CA firms shall not hold any documents overnight in their custody. Hence, all vouchers / books/ registers/ security document / title deeds / any other documents / vital correspondence etc., are to be returned to the officials of the Branch / Office on same day.
17 CA firms shall submit their bill / invoice on a monthly basis, before 7th of the succeeding month
18 CA firms shall endeavour to maintain continuity of their Assistant / Articled clerk at the Branch / Office, so that there will not be any compromise on the quality of assigned tasks due to frequent change of Assistant / Articled clerk.
19 The Concurrent Auditor will be fully responsible for the quality of the audit, timely completion of audit and submission of the audit reports, verification of compliances and reporting to controllers.
20 Any change in the name, address, constitution and partnership deed must be reported to bank within 15 days of such change with necessary supporting documents. Failing which, it will be treated as deliberate suppression of facts by the firm and thereby making them liable to compensate the bank for such change. In such eventualities, bank also reserves its right to terminate the contract with such firm without notice.
21 New partners have to sign documents within 15 days of joining and not doing so will attract the provision relating to deliberate suppression of facts.
22 Outgoing partner will remain liable to Bank to the extent and period as determined by the Bank on case-to-case basis
23 Firm when engaged as concurrent auditor cannot assign/subcontract the job in any sense of the term and in any form whatsoever it may be to any other person. Any assignment/subcontract of the job in some others favours either through operation of law or otherwise will deem the original contract as terminated.
24 In case any information furnished during the application process is found at any point of time, to be incorrect, bank will not only summarily reject the applicant nominate the contract without any notice, but also the applicant may be blacklisted from any future such process with V- s Bank.
25 Bank may share such information with ICAI, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or Indian Bankers’ Association (IBA) which is the voluntary representative body of all banking institutions in the country or any other organization, who, in turn, may share the information among its member institutions.
26 Notwithstanding anything contained herein above, the Bank reserves its right to terminate the contract by giving 30 days prior notice to the other side without assigning any reason.
27 Apart from above, the guidelines as per Audit Policy and Circular Instructions on Concurrent Audits issued from time to time are required to be followed.
28 Empanelment and allocation of branches to the auditors will be purely the prerogative of the bank. Such empanelment shall be initially for a period of one year and can be extended up to a maximum period of 3years subject to satisfactory performance of the auditor.
III. PROCESS OF EMPANELMENT
The interested firm will have to submit request for empanelment on the enclosed application form as mentioned in Annexure I. The Proposals will be opened and short listed on the basis of eligibility criteria as mentioned in this document. These firms would further be evaluated on the basis of other criteria as may be determined by the Bank.
IV. DOCUMENT TO BE SUBMITTED WITH THE APPLICATION
The CA Firm shall submit the following documents along with the application:
1 Hard copy of application.
2 Acceptance of the terms and conditions as contained in this document.
3 Copies of letters of empanelment by any other Bank.
4 Copies of Certificate of experiences and conduct of Concurrent Audit in relation to similar assignments performed, in other Banks, if any.
5 Copies of Certificate issued by the professional bodies in respect of relevant qualification of professionals as reported in the application.
6 Copy of the registration certificate with RBI having the category of the Audit Firm. The sealed envelope must state “APPLICATION FOR EMPANELMENT OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS FIRMS as CONCURENT AUDITOR”
V. VALIDITY OF PROPOSAL
The Proposal for empanelment shall be valid for a period of 3 months from the closing
date for acceptance of the proposal.
VI. FORMAT AND SIGNING OF PROPOSAL
Each Proposal shall be made in the legal name of the participating firm and shall be signed and duly stamped by the person duly authorized to sign on behalf of the participating Firm. An authority letter from the participating firm to this effect is to be submitted along the proposal.
VII. EVALUATION & COMPARISON OF PROPOSALS
1 Only proposal from CA Firms meeting the eligibility criteria and submitting complete and responsive information will proceed to the stage of being evaluated and considered.
2 Merely meeting the eligibility criteria would not automatically entitle the firm for empanelment. The firms to be kept on the panel would be at the sole discretion of the Bank.
3 The Bank reserves its right to reject any or all the offers without assigning any reasons.
4 The evaluation procedures to be adopted for the empanelment will be the sole discretion of the Bank and the Bank is not liable to disclose either of the criteria or the evaluation report/ reasoning to the participating firm (s).
5 Those applicants who fulfil all the basic eligibility criteria will be evaluated based on location of firm, residential status of partners, experience, availability of sufficient trained personnel (ICAI Trained article clerks/ retired commercial bank officers) with the firm and such other factors as the Bank may deem fit for its requirements.
6 The prima facie scrutiny of the applications will be done by a Screening Committee appointed by competent authority.
7 The final selection of the CA firms will be approved by a Selection Committee and will be final. No further correspondence in this regard shall be entertained.
VIII. SUBMISSION OF APPLICATION
1 The application should be submitted in the following format as stated in Annexure Ito The General Manger (HK & IT) Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank, Head Office, 2-5-8/1, Opp: Life Line Hospital, Ramnagar, HANAMKONDA — 506001 only by postal service/courier.
2 “Application for empanelment of Chartered Accountant Firms for Concurrent Audit” should be mentioned on the envelope.
3 Mere submission of application does not in any way constitute guarantee for allotment of any audit job from the Bank.
4 If the space provided for against any item in the application format is not sufficient, details may be furnished in a separate sheet to be kept attached to this applications.
5 All enclosures must be attested as true copy under seal by at least one partner of the partnership firm.
6 Any change in the application format will result in rejection of the same.
7 Last Date for reaching application at Head Office is 09.09.2024.
IX. MODIFICATIONS AND / OR WITHDRAWAL OF APPLICATION
Application once submitted will be treated as final and no further correspondence will be entertained. As no subsequent modification of application / documents is permissible, the firms are advised to exercise utmost care in filling up and submission of application / documents.
X. INFORMATION OF EMPANELMENT
Only the Audit Firm provisionally selected for empanelment will be communicated through email mentioned in the application. No individual intimation will be sent to the audit firm whose application is not considered for empanelment. No further correspondence will be entertained in this regard.
Xl. CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT/UNDERTAKING
As the successful Firm (s) will have access to the data of the Bank while conducting Concurrent Audit of the various branches/ offices, Bank will require the Firm(s) to sign a confidentiality agreement/ undertaking for not disclosing or part with any information relating to the Bank and its data to any persons / source, as may come into possession of the firm(s) during course of the audit.
XII. TENDERING OF ACCEPTANCE
The successful Firm(s) shall be required to give an acceptance to the Bank containing the terms and conditions as may be determined by the Bank to be necessary for the due performance of the work on receipt of offer for conducting concurrent audit(s) of a branch(es)/ Office (s) within a maximum period of fifteen (15) days from the date of receipt of offer letter.
XIII. INDEMNIFICATION
The auditors shall, at their own expense, defend and indemnify the Bank against any claims due to loss of data/damage to arising as a consequence of their conducting audit of the branch/office.
XIV. SCOPE OF CONCURRENT AUDIT
1 The main role of concurrent auditor is to supplement the efforts of the bank in carrying out simultaneous internal check of the transactions and other verifications and compliance with the procedures laid down.
2 The scope of the concurrent audit would cover certain fraud prone areas like handling of cash, deposits, safe custody of securities, investments, exercise of discretionary powers, sundry and suspense accounts, inter-bank reconciliations, clearing differences, off-balance sheet items like letter of credit and guarantee, treasury functions and credit card business. Importance should be given to checking of high-risk transactions having large financial implications as compared to transactions involving small amounts.
3 Should cover credit risk areas such as irregularities in pre-sanction, sanction, documentation and post sanction.
4 Details of the items to be verified by the Concurrent Auditor are mentioned in the Annexure-IV.
XV. DELIVERY, REPORTING AND REVIEWING SYSTEM
The Concurrent Audits should be conducted in accordance with the instructions mentioned in the scope of Concurrent Audit through WEBCAS portal.
XVI. DELAYS IN THE AUDITOR’S PERFORMANCE
The auditors must strictly adhere to the implementation schedule, as specified in the letter of undertaking for submission of reports failing which the Bank may resort to termination of the assignment and empanelment.
XVII. PAYMENT TO THE CONCURRENT AUDITORS FIRM
The audit fee payable for conduct of concurrent audit per branch is Rs.12000/- + GST, per month. Any other expenses wii; not be paid / reimbursed.
XVIII. PAYMENT TERMS
The Audit fee shall be paid to the Concurrent Audit Firm on submission of the relevant audit reports and the relevant Bill along with supported documents. This payment will be subject to deduction of prevailing / applicable T.D.S.
XIX. PERFORMANCE REVIEW
The performance of the empanelled Concurrent Audit Firms would be reviewed on monthly basis mainly with the following yardsticks:
1. Quality of Audit Reports.
2. Timely completion of audit assignment and submission of report.
3. Effort taken for on the spot rectification of irregularities.
4. Making the staff aware about the implication of the deficiencies /irregularities pointed out.
5. Detection of the income leakage.
6. Level of compliance of Various Statutory /legal / Bank’s laid down system and procedure at the Branch/ Office.
7. Any other parameter which the Bank may decide/ determine form time to time.
XX. DE-EMPANELMENT
The Banks reserves the right to de-empanelment of firm of Chartered Accountant its sole discretion without giving any reason by giving 30 days prior notice.
XXI. PENALTY PROVISIONS
Penalty Provisions are given as per Annexure- II
XXII. DISCIPLINARY ACTION FOR PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT
1 The Audit firm shall be subject to Disciplinary Rules as enumerated in Section (21) of the Chartered Accountants Act. 1949.
2 In case of any serious act of omission or commission in the working of the concurrent audit system, the bank may consider termination of the appointment of outside agency and a report will be made to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for such action as they deem fit and also to GOI / RBI.
XXIII. LIST OF BRANCHES/ OFFICES TO BE AUDITED
Mentioned in Annexure-III
XXIV. FUNCTIONALITY:
1 The Concurrent Auditor has to do the audit as per the items mentioned in Annexure IV, if any deviations observed by him, he has to record the same in the WEBCAS portal.
2 Whenever fraudulent transactions are detected, they should immediately be reported to Inspection and Audit Department at Head Office.
3 Their functionality should be on the lines of instructions/ guidelines enumerated in Audit Policy and circular instructions issued from time to time.
4 The Concurrent Auditor of the firm must visit the branch allotted to him at least twice in a week or 8 days in a month. Further, the partner of the Firm should visit at least twice in a month. If the prescribed 10 visits per month per branch (both Auditor/ Partner taken together) are not done, Audit fee will be paid proportionately.
General Manager (HR & II)
Andhra Pradesh Grameena Bank
Head Office, Warangal.
Date: 27-08-2024
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