Audit of the FINREP figures

Article 3(4) of the Regulation (EU) No 680/2014 13 ITS on Supervisory Reporting of institutions states that institutions may submit unaudited figures but where audited figures deviate from submitted unaudited figures, the revised audited figures shall be submitted without undue delay. It further states that unaudited figures are figures that have not received an external auditor's opinion whereas audited figures are figures audited by an external auditor expressing an audit opinion. This means that FINREP figures shall be based on the annual accounting data that have to receive an auditor's opinion under IFRS scope of consolidation, but the FINREP templates themselves (CRR scope of consolidation) do not need to be explicitly audited. Also, since accounting financial statements are generally to be audited on an annual basis and FINREP requires the submission of information also on a quarterly and half-annually basis, Article 3(4) of the ITS envisages the use of unaudited data to fill in FINREP templates. Furthermore, even in case of audited financial statements, the audited figures could still not be available at the date FINREP templates are submitted because the audit process of the accounting financial statement is not concluded yet. In such a case, given the lack of audited figures, institutions may submit unaudited figures by the relevant deadline and then replace them with the audited figures if the latter deviate from the submitted unaudited ones.