The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) on Tuesday joined hands with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh or ICAB aiming to ensure transparency in the audited financial statements (AFS).
The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to utilise the Document Verification System (DVS) developed by the ICAB.
FRC Chairman Dr Md Hamid Ullah Bhuiyan and ICAB President Muhammad Farooq signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organisations at a function at the latter's office in the city, a statement said.
The Document Verification System is an application software to prevent auditing firms from submitting fake or more than one audited financial statements to the regulatory bodies.
Addressing the programme, the FRC chairman said optimum use of the DVS will thwart the auditors from producing multiple audited financial statements.
He expected the agreement between the two organisations will help strengthen the monitoring and review system of the audited financial statements.
"Listed companies' contribution to the country's GDP is only nine per cent, which is very low," Mr Hamid Ullah said.
"If the companies submit properly audited financial statements, the NBR's revenue will increase even more," he added.
Muhammad Farooq said the DVS has already become quite acceptable to the business community and other regulatory bodies.
"The ICAB has provided trainings to CA firm representatives to make DVS effective. It will be effective in making the accounting system acceptable and reliable," he said.
The ICAB introduced this digital tool to help curb malpractice of producing multiple financial statements and to establish transparency and accountability in the accounting system of the country, he added.
In a presentation on DVS, ICAB Vice President Muhammed Forkan Uddin explained how the tool works.
A system known as 'Unique Document Identification Number' or UDIN is being introduced in India, he pointed out.
The ICAB has planned to develop this DVS in order to stop producing multiple audited financial reports, he said.
He also said that the auditors registered with the ICAB sign 16,000 financial statements every year while the Register of Joint Stock Companies (RJSC) receive 46,000 such documents.
The cooperation between the FRC and the ICAB will help prevent the malpractices in the countries financial sector and help the economy grow stronger, hoped the speakers.
ICAB President for 2021 Mahmudul Hasan Khusru, Council Member & past president of the institute Kamrul Abedin also addressed the event while ICAB Chief Executive Officer Shubhashish Bose made the closing remarks.
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