Revision of Concurrent Audit System in Commercial Banks — RBI’s Guidelines

Con­cur­rent Audit Sys­tem in Com­mer­cial Banks — Revi­sion of RBI’s Guidelines

As you are aware, guide­lines on ‘con­cur­rent audit sys­tem in com­mer­cial banks’ were issued by us vide our cir­cu­lar DOS.No.BC.16/08.91.021/96 dat­ed August 14, 1996 set­ting out the scope and cov­er­age of con­cur­rent audit sys­tem in com­mer­cial banks.

In view of the changes since then in banks’ orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture, busi­ness mod­els, use of tech­nol­o­gy (imple­men­ta­tion of Core Bank­ing Solu­tion), etc., a need was felt to have a relook at the con­cur­rent audit sys­tem in the bank­ing sec­tor. Accord­ing­ly, the exist­ing guide­lines have been revised which are set out in Annex I.

2. Since the con­cur­rent audit sys­tem is regard­ed as part of a bank’s ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem to ensure time­ly detec­tion of irreg­u­lar­i­ties and laps­es, which also helps in pre­vent­ing fraud­u­lent trans­ac­tions at branch­es, the bank’s man­age­ment may con­tin­ue to bestow seri­ous atten­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of var­i­ous aspects of the sys­tem such as selec­tion of branches/coverage of busi­ness oper­a­tions, appoint­ment of audi­tors, appro­pri­ate report­ing pro­ce­dures, fol­low-up/rec­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es and uti­liza­tion of the feed­back from the sys­tem for appro­pri­ate and quick man­age­ment decisions.

3. You may ensure that, based on the revised guide­lines indi­cat­ed in Annex I, a review of the present sys­tem of con­cur­rent audit is car­ried out imme­di­ate­ly and nec­es­sary changes are incor­po­rat­ed there­in. The mod­i­fied con­cur­rent audit sys­tem of your bank should be placed before the Audit Com­mit­tee of Board of Direc­tors (ACB).

4. The bank should, once in a year, review the effec­tive­ness of the sys­tem and take nec­es­sary mea­sures to cor­rect the lacu­nae in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Programme.

Yours faith­ful­ly

(Indrani Baner­jee)
Chief Gen­er­al Manager

RBI/2015–16/133
DBS.CO.ARS.No. BC. 2/08.91.021/2015–16

July 16, 2015

Annex — I

Revised Guide­lines for Con­cur­rent Audit Sys­tem in Com­mer­cial Banks

(A) Scope of con­cur­rent audit

Con­cur­rent audit is an exam­i­na­tion which is con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous with the occur­rence of trans­ac­tions or is car­ried out as near there­to as pos­si­ble. It attempts to short­en the inter­val between a trans­ac­tion and its exam­i­na­tion by an inde­pen­dent per­son. There is an empha­sis in favour of sub­stan­tive check­ing in key areas rather than test check­ing. This audit is essen­tial­ly a man­age­ment process inte­gral to the estab­lish­ment of sound inter­nal account­ing func­tions and effec­tive con­trols and set­ting the tone for a vig­i­lant inter­nal audit to pre­clude the inci­dence of seri­ous errors and fraud­u­lent manipulations.

A con­cur­rent audi­tor may not sit in judge­ment of the deci­sions tak­en by a branch man­ag­er or an autho­rised offi­cial. This is beyond the scope of con­cur­rent audit. How­ev­er, the audit will nec­es­sar­i­ly have to see whether the trans­ac­tions or deci­sions are with­in the pol­i­cy para­me­ters laid down by the Head Office, they do not vio­late the instruc­tions or pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions of the RBI, and that they are with­in the del­e­gat­ed authority.

In very large branch­es, which have dif­fer­ent divi­sions deal­ing with spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties, con­cur­rent audit is a means to the in-charge of the branch to ensure on an ongo­ing basis that the dif­fer­ent divi­sions func­tion with­in laid down para­me­ters and procedures.

(B) Cov­er­age of business/branches

In view of sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments in the bank­ing sec­tor dur­ing the past decade, it is required that new areas pos­ing risk may be brought under the purview of con­cur­rent audit. A large num­ber of activ­i­ties / oper­a­tions are being car­ried out in a cen­tral­ized man­ner at var­i­ous units set up for that pur­pose and the scale of trans­ac­tions / oper­a­tions under­tak­en at these units is large. With a view to ensur­ing that the func­tion­ing of these units is as per the inter­nal as well as reg­u­la­to­ry guide­lines and mit­i­gat­ing the risk asso­ci­at­ed with large-scale oper­a­tions, such non-branch units may be brought under the purview of con­cur­rent audit.

While select­ing the branch­es for con­cur­rent Audit, the risk pro­file of the branch­es needs to be con­sid­ered. The branch­es with high risk are to be sub­ject­ed to con­cur­rent audit irre­spec­tive of their busi­ness size. Fur­ther, all spe­cial­ized branch­es viz., Agri, SME, Cor­po­rate, Retail Assets, Port­fo­lio Man­age­ment, Trea­sury, Forex, Back Office, etc., may be cov­ered under con­cur­rent audit. Cer­tain areas where risk has reduced on account of com­put­er­i­za­tion, imple­men­ta­tion of core bank­ing sys­tem may be exclud­ed from the purview of con­cur­rent audit.

Con­cur­rent audit at branch­es should cov­er at least 50% of the advances and 50% of deposits of a bank. The fol­low­ing branch­es, busi­ness activities/verticals of a bank may be sub­ject to con­cur­rent audit:

1. Branch­es rat­ed as high risk or above in the last Risk Based Inter­nal Audit (RBIA) or seri­ous defi­cien­cies found in Inter­nal Audit.
2. All spe­cial­ized branch­es like Large Cor­po­rate, Mid Cor­po­rate, excep­tion­al­ly large/very large branch­es (ELBs/VLBs), SME.
3. All Cen­tralised Pro­cess­ing Units like Loan Pro­cess­ing Units (LPUs), ser­vice branch­es, cen­tral­ized account open­ing divi­sions, etc.
4. Any spe­cial­ized activ­i­ties such as wealth man­age­ment, port­fo­lio man­age­ment ser­vices, Card Prod­ucts Divi­sion, etc.
5. Data Cen­tres.
6. Treasury/branches han­dling for­eign exchange busi­ness, invest­ment bank­ing, etc. and big­ger over­seas branches.
7. Crit­i­cal Head Office Departments.
8. Any oth­er branch­es or depart­ments where, in the opin­ion of the bank, con­cur­rent audit is desirable.

© Types of activ­i­ties to be covered

(1) The main role of con­cur­rent audit 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 con­cur­rent audit should be wide enough/focused to cov­er cer­tain fraud — prone areas such as han­dling of cash, deposits, advances, for­eign exchange busi­ness, off-bal­ance sheet items, cred­it-card busi­ness, inter­net bank­ing, etc.

(3) The detailed scope of the con­cur­rent audit should be clear­ly and uni­form­ly deter­mined for the bank as a whole by the bank’s Inspec­tion and Audit Depart­ment in con­sul­ta­tion with the bank’s Audit Com­mit­tee of the Board of Direc­tors (ACB).

(4) In deter­min­ing the scope, impor­tance should be giv­en to check­ing high-risk trans­ac­tions hav­ing large finan­cial impli­ca­tions as opposed to trans­ac­tions involv­ing small amounts.

(5) While the detailed scope of con­cur­rent audit may be deter­mined and approved by ACB, cer­tain min­i­mum items of cov­er­age are giv­en in Annex II. In addi­tion to the above, the items where RBI has specif­i­cal­ly advised the banks to be cov­ered under con­cur­rent audit, may also be part of the check­list of the con­cur­rent auditor.

(D) Appoint­ment of Audi­tors and Accountability

(i) The option to con­sid­er whether con­cur­rent audit should be done by bank’s own staff or exter­nal audi­tors (which may include retired staff of its own bank) is left to the dis­cre­tion of indi­vid­ual banks.

(ii) In case the bank has engaged its own offi­cials, they should be expe­ri­enced, well trained and suf­fi­cient­ly senior. The staff engaged in con­cur­rent audit must be inde­pen­dent of the Branch where con­cur­rent audit is conducted.

(iii) Appoint­ment of an exter­nal audit firm may be ini­tial­ly for one year and extend­ed upto three years, after which an audi­tor could be shift­ed to anoth­er branch sub­ject to sat­is­fac­to­ry performance.

(iv) If exter­nal firms are appoint­ed and any seri­ous acts of omis­sion or com­mis­sion are noticed in their work­ing, their appoint­ments may be can­celled and the fact may be report­ed to RBI & ICAI.

(E) Facil­i­ties for effec­tive Con­cur­rent Audit

It has been rep­re­sent­ed that con­cur­rent audit is not often effec­tive because ade­quate facil­i­ties in terms of space, avail­abil­i­ty of records, etc. are not avail­able. To improve the effec­tive­ness of con­cur­rent audit it is sug­gest­ed that -

(i) banks arrange for an ini­tial and peri­od­i­cal famil­iari­sa­tion process both for the bank’s own staff when entrust­ed with the con­cur­rent audit and for the exter­nal audi­tors appoint­ed for the purpose.

(ii) all rel­e­vant inter­nal guidelines/circulars/important ref­er­ences as well as rel­e­vant cir­cu­lars issued by RBI/SEBI and oth­er reg­u­lat­ing bod­ies should be made avail­able to the con­cur­rent audi­tors on an on-going basis.

(iii) where ade­quate space is not avail­able, con­cur­rent audi­tors can com­mence work imme­di­ate­ly after the close of bank­ing hours.

(F) Remu­ner­a­tion

Terms of appoint­ment of the exter­nal firms of Char­tered Accoun­tants for the con­cur­rent audit and their remu­ner­a­tion may be fixed by banks at their dis­cre­tion. Broad guide­lines should be framed by ACB for this pur­pose. Suit­able pack­ages should be fixed by each bank’s man­age­ment in con­sul­ta­tion with its ACB, keep­ing in view var­i­ous fac­tors such as cov­er­age of areas, qual­i­ty of work expect­ed, num­ber of peo­ple required for the job, num­ber of hours to be spent on the job, etc.

(G) Report­ing Systems

(i) The bank may devise a report­ing sys­tem and peri­od­ic­i­ty of var­i­ous check list items as per its sensitivity.

(ii) Minor irreg­u­lar­i­ties point­ed out by the con­cur­rent audi­tors are to be rec­ti­fied on the spot. Seri­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties should be straight­away report­ed to the Con­trol­ling Offices/Head Offices for imme­di­ate action.

(iii) There should be zone/area-wise report­ing of the find­ings of the con­cur­rent audit to ACB and an annu­al appraisal/report of the audit sys­tem should be placed before the ACB.

(iv) When­ev­er fraud­u­lent trans­ac­tions are detect­ed, they should imme­di­ate­ly be report­ed to Inspec­tion & Audit Depart­ment (Head Office) as also to the Chief Vig­i­lance Offi­cer as well as Branch Man­agers con­cerned (unless the branch man­ag­er is involved).

(v) There should be prop­er report­ing of the find­ings of the con­cur­rent audi­tors. For this pur­pose, each bank should pre­pare a struc­tured for­mat. The major deficiencies/aberrations noticed dur­ing audit should be high­light­ed in a spe­cial note and giv­en imme­di­ate­ly to the bank’s branch con­trol­ling offices. A quar­ter­ly review con­tain­ing impor­tant fea­tures brought out dur­ing con­cur­rent audits should be placed before the ACB.

(vi) Fol­low-up action on the con­cur­rent audit reports should be giv­en high pri­or­i­ty by the Con­trol­ling Office/Inspection and Audit Depart­ment and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion of the fea­tures done with­out any loss of time.

(vii) Banks are advised to :

(1) review the selec­tion of auditors.

(2) ini­ti­ate and oper­ate a sys­tem for appraisal of the per­for­mance of con­cur­rent auditors.

(3) ensure that the work of con­cur­rent audi­tors is prop­er­ly documented.

(4) be respon­si­ble for the fol­low-up on audit reports and the pre­sen­ta­tion of the quar­ter­ly review to the ACB.

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Annex II

Min­i­mum Audit Pro­gramme for Con­cur­rent Audit Sys­tem in Com­mer­cial Banks
Sr. No.	Items
A	Cash trans­ac­tions ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	Sur­prise phys­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of cash at branch and ATM along with safe­keep­ing and custody.
(ii)	Dai­ly cash trans­ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly any abnor­mal receipts & payments.
(iii)	Sur­prise ver­i­fi­ca­tion of cash by an offi­cer oth­er than the joint custodian.
(iv)	Prop­er account­ing of and avail­abil­i­ty of insur­ance cov­er for inward and out­ward cash remittances.
(v)	Account­ing of cur­ren­cy chest trans­ac­tions and delays/omission in report­ing to RBI.
(vi)	Report­ing of Coun­ter­feit Currency.
(vii)	All cash trans­ac­tions of Rs. 10 lakh and above report­ed in CTR.
(viii)	That all cash trans­ac­tion of Rs. 50,000 and above invari­ably indi­cate Pan No./Form 60.
B	Clear­ing trans­ac­tions ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with bank’s account at Clear­ing House and review of old out­stand­ing entries for reconciliation.
(ii)	Draw­ings allowed against uncleared instru­ments — sanc­tion by the con­trol­ling authority.
C	Remittances/Bills for Col­lec­tion ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	Remit­tance of funds by way of DDs/TTs/MTs/TC/NEFT/RTGS any oth­er mode in cash exceed­ing the pre­scribed limit.
(ii)	Doc­u­ments of title (lor­ry receipts, rail­way receipts, etc.) obtained in favour of the bank and the con­cerned trans­porters are on the IBA approved list.
(iii)	Out­stand­ing bal­ance in DP and oth­er tran­sit accounts pend­ing pay­ment beyond pre­scribed period.
D	Deposits ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	Adher­ence to KYC/AML guide­lines in open­ing of fresh accounts and mon­i­tor­ing of trans­ac­tions in such accounts.
(ii)	Large term deposits received and repaid includ­ing check­ing of repay­ment of term deposit in cash beyond per­mis­si­ble limit.
(iii)	Accounts opened and closed with­in a short span of time i.e., accounts with quick mortality.
(iv)	Acti­va­tion and oper­a­tions in inop­er­a­tive accounts.
(v)	Val­ue dat­ed transactions.
(vi)	Set­tle­ment of claims of deceased cus­tomers and pay­ment of TDRs against lost receipts and obten­tion of indem­ni­ties, etc. To check revival of dor­mant accounts and accounts with min­i­mum activities.
(vii)	Exam­i­na­tion of mul­ti­ple cred­its to sin­gle accounts.
E	Trea­sury oper­a­tions ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	If branch has act­ed with­in HO instruc­tions for pur­chase and sale of securities.
(ii)	Peri­od­ic con­fir­ma­tion of Deriv­a­tive con­tracts with counterparties.
(iii)	Adher­ence to reg­u­la­to­ry guide­lines with respect to Trea­sury deals/structured deals.
(iv)	Con­trols around deal modification/cancellation/deletion, wher­ev­er applicable.
(v)	Can­cel­la­tion of for­ward con­tracts and passing/recovery of exchange gain/loss.
(vi)	Gaps and OPL main­tained in dif­fer­ent cur­ren­cies vis-à-vis pre­scribed lim­it for the same.
(vii)	Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of Nos­tro and Vostro accounts-bal­ances in Nos­tro accounts in dif­fer­ent for­eign cur­ren­cies are with­in the lim­its pre­scribed by the bank.
(viii)	Col­lec­tion of under­ly­ing doc­u­ments for Deriv­a­tive & For­ward con­tracts. Delays, if any.
(ix)	Instances of book­ing and can­cel­la­tion of for­ward con­tracts with the same coun­ter­par­ty with­in a span of cou­ple of days or a few days.
(x)	Sam­ple check some of the deals and com­ment on the cor­rect­ness of computation.
(xi)	Check­ing of appli­ca­tion mon­ey, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of SGL account, com­pli­ance to RBI norms.
(xii)	Check­ing of cus­tody of unused BR Forms & their uti­liza­tion in terms of Mas­ter Cir­cu­lar on Pru­den­tial Norms on Clas­si­fi­ca­tion, Val­u­a­tion and Oper­a­tions of Invest­ment Port­fo­lio by banks.
(xiii)	To ensure that the trea­sury oper­a­tions of the bank have been con­duct­ed in accor­dance with the instruc­tions issued by the RBI from time to time.
F	Loans & Advances-Verify
(i)	Report Bills/cheques pur­chased, if in the nature of accom­mo­da­tion bills.
(ii)	Prop­er fol­low-up of over­due bills purchased/discounted/negotiated.
(iii)	Fresh loans and advances (includ­ing staff advances) have been sanc­tioned prop­er­ly and in accor­dance with del­e­gat­ed authority.
(iv)	Report­ing of instances of exceed­ing del­e­gat­ed pow­ers to controlling/head office by the branch and have been con­firmed or rat­i­fied by the com­pe­tent authority.
(v)	Secu­ri­ties and doc­u­ments have been received as applic­a­ble to par­tic­u­lar loan.
(vi)	Secu­ri­ties have been prop­er­ly charged/ reg­is­tered and val­ued by com­pe­tent per­son. Whether the same has been entered in the bank’s system.
(vii)	All con­di­tions of sanc­tion have been com­plied with.
(viii)	Mas­ter data relat­ing to lim­it, rate of inter­est, EMI, mora­to­ri­um peri­od details have been cor­rect­ly entered and updated/modified in the system.
(ix)	Val­ue dat­ed entries passed in advances accounts.
(x)	Post dis­burse­ment super­vi­sion and fol­low-up is prop­er, such as time­ly receipt of stock and book debt state­ments, QIS data, analy­sis of finan­cial data sub­mit­ted by bor­row­er, ver­i­fi­ca­tion of secu­ri­ties by third par­ties, renew­al of lim­its, insur­ance, etc.
(xi)	Whether there is any misu­til­i­sa­tion of the loans and whether there are instances indica­tive of diver­sion of funds.
(xii)	Com­pli­ance of pru­den­tial norms on income recog­ni­tion, asset clas­si­fi­ca­tion and pro­vi­sion­ing per­tain­ing to advances.
(xiii)	whether month­ly updat­ing of draw­ing pow­er in the com­put­er sys­tem on the basis of stock statements/book debt statement/ oth­er finan­cial data received from the borrowers.
(xiv)	Recov­ery in com­pro­mise cas­es is in accor­dance with the terms and con­di­tions of the com­pro­mise agreement.
(xv)	To check review and renew­al of loans.
G	LC/BG ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	LC/BG issued/amended as per the approved format/model guar­an­tee pre­scribed and stan­dard lim­i­ta­tion clause incor­po­rat­ed. Whether counter indem­ni­ty obtained as prescribed.
(ii)	Any devi­a­tion from the terms of sanc­tion in regard to mar­gin, secu­ri­ty, pur­pose, peri­od, ben­e­fi­cia­ry, col­lec­tion of charges, commission/fee, etc.
(iii)	Whether pay­ment is made to the deb­it of par­ty’s account on due date with­out cre­at­ing overdraft/debiting sus­pense, in case of deferred pay­ment guarantee.
H	For­eign Exchange transactions-Verify
(i)	Recov­ery of charges as per HO Guidelines.
(ii)	Pack­ing cred­it released, whether backed by LC or con­firmed export order.
(iii)	Avail­abil­i­ty of ECGC cov­er and com­pli­ance with ECGC terms.
(iv)	Sub­mis­sion of statu­to­ry returns on export/ import trans­ac­tions, like BEF state­ments, XOS, write off of export bills, etc. Fol­low up of out­stand­ing export bills and exchange con­trol copy of bill of entry.
(v)	Irreg­u­lar­i­ties in open­ing of new accounts and oper­a­tion in NRO, FCNR, NRE, EEFC, etc., and debits/credits entries per­mis­si­ble under the rules.
(vi)	Whether oper­a­tions in FCRA accounts are as per­mit­ted by MHA and FCRA guidelines.
(vii)	Book­ing, uti­liza­tion, exten­sion and can­cel­la­tion of for­ward contracts.
I	House Keep­ing ‑Ver­i­fy
(i)	Excep­tion­al trans­ac­tion reports are gen­er­at­ed and ver­i­fied by branch staff as prescribed.
(ii)	Review of all bal­ance sheet heads and out­stand­ing entries in accounts, e.g., sus­pense, sundry and inter-bank accounts. Review of fol­low up of entries pend­ing for reversal.
(iii)	Scruti­ny of dai­ly vouch­ers with more empha­sis on high val­ue trans­ac­tion includ­ing high val­ue expens­es and deb­it entries in Sus­pense account.
(iv)	Deb­its in accounts where sig­na­tures are pend­ing for scanning.
(v)	Whether records relat­ed to KYC/vouchers and oth­er crit­i­cal areas are sent to spe­cif­ic places like archival cen­ter, record room as per stip­u­lat­ed periodicity.
(vi)	Adher­ence to KYC/AML guide­lines in open­ing fresh account and sub­se­quent mod­i­fi­ca­tions of records and mon­i­tor­ing of transaction.
J	Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Mer­chant Bank­ing Business-Verify
(i)	Whether the instruc­tions giv­en by the con­trol­ling branch are prop­er­ly fol­lowed where the branch acts as a col­lect­ing branch for issue business.
(ii)	Whether dai­ly col­lec­tion posi­tion is advised to the con­trol­ling branch.
(iii)	Whether recov­ery of the commission/fees and out of pock­et expens­es as agreed with the respec­tive com­pa­nies and whether the com­pe­tent author­i­ty has duly autho­rized any waiv­er or reduc­tion of such charges.
(iv)	Whether the pre­scribed pre­ven­tive vig­i­lance mea­sures are observed by the branch.
(v)	Where data entry or data pro­cess­ing work is entrust­ed to out­side agen­cies, the com­pe­tent author­i­ty duly approves these and the pre­scribed stamped indem­ni­ty has been obtained from such agencies.
(vi)	Whether div­i­dend inter­est warrants/refund pay­ment accounts of com­pa­nies are fund­ed pri­or to dis­patch of the rel­a­tive war­rants by the com­pa­nies and there is no mis­use of the facility.
(vii)	Whether Claims for reim­burse­ment of amounts of paid war­rants received from pay­ing branch­es are processed and deb­it­ed to the con­cerned com­pa­ny’s account promptly.
(viii)	Whether charge on secu­ri­ty has been cre­at­ed, wher­ev­er deben­ture trustee activ­i­ty is under­tak­en by bank.
K	Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Cred­it Card/Debit card –Ver­i­fy
(i)	Appli­ca­tion for the issue of cred­it card has been prop­er­ly exam­ined and record of issue of the same has been maintained.
(ii)	Whether overdraft/debits aris­ing out of the use of cred­it cards are prompt­ly recov­ered and informed to high­er authorities.
(iii)	Whether unde­liv­ered cred­it cards are prop­er­ly kept as secu­ri­ty items and fol­lowed up with cred­it card depart­ment for fur­ther instructions.
(iv)	Phys­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of ATM cards, deb­it cards, cred­it cards, pass­words and PINS, con­trol over issue & deliv­ery, safe keep­ing and cus­tody at all the loca­tions. Report loss of any such items.
L	Oth­ers –Ver­i­fy
(i)	Com­pli­ance of pro­vi­sions relat­ing to Tax Deduct­ed at Source, ser­vice tax, trade tax, oth­er duties and taxes.
(ii)	Phys­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of inven­to­ry, con­trol over issue of inven­to­ry, safe keep­ing and cus­tody of secu­ri­ty forms. Report any loss of such items.
(iii)	Phys­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of oth­er deliv­er­able items, con­trol over issue, safe keep­ing and custody.
(iv)	Phys­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Gold coins, con­trol over issue, safe keep­ing and cus­tody. Check­ing of Gold sale transactions.
(v)	Cus­tody and move­ment of branch keys.
(vi)	Lock­er keys and lock­er oper­a­tions-link­ing of FDR as secu­ri­ty for locker/operation of locker/inoperative lockers/ nomination/other issues.
(vii)	Safe cus­tody of branch doc­u­ments like death claim cas­es, issuance of dupli­cate DD/PO/FDR, check­ing of indem­ni­ties, etc. and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of doc­u­ments exe­cut­ed dur­ing the peri­od under audit.
(viii)	Report­ing of frauds.