As a consequence, the environment in which most BDO frms now operate is one of heightened regulation, constant external scrutiny, expanded transparency expectations and ever more detailed compliance obligations. The expectations of the policymakers, regulators and oversight bodies continue to develop exponentially and more of our service offerings are regulated - in one way or another - than ever before. As a globally cohesive and future-focused organisation with exceptional client service at its heart, BDO understands that we must constantly engage with policymakers and regulators and seek to understand the existing and looming public policy imperatives that shape the environment in which we and our clients operate. We constantly invest in service quality enhancement and tools, including state of the art audit methodologies, restricted entity databases, corporate tree databases and a suite of risk management tools that are required and expected to meet stated regulatory requirements and service our growth-oriented, global client base. Those expectations also extend to human resources matters such as recruitment, training and appointment to key positions in our frms, as well as ensuring adequate cybersecurity precautions, data protection procedures and ‘know-your-client’ processes. At BDO, our frms have actively embraced transparency requirements for revamped and enhanced public reporting by audit frms with public interest entity audit clients. In fact, the market expectations are even higher and BDO has sought to lead by the expansive nature and scope of our transparency reporting. We continue to engage positively and constructively with a range of historically relevant policymakers and regulators, but we are equally committed to doing so with the new stakeholders in our ever-evolving regulatory environment. Active engagement on public policy debates is increasingly necessary and expected from a business perspective, on issues such as sustainability, climate change, corporate governance, cybercrime, anti-fraud, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering, as well as on geopolitical and geo-economic themes such as Brexit, trade wars, and EU/OECD digital tax proposals. BDO is involved with the wider profession in extensive discussions with all of the relevant stakeholders in these critical public policy areas. Most importantly, BDO understands the urgent need to build and restore confdence in the quality of the core audit and in the integrity of the audit and assurance profession. Our regulatory and public policy experts’ frequent engagement with audit policymakers and regulators is evidence of our commitment to actively supporting efforts to develop focused, effective and value-adding regulation. This in turn heightens trust in what we do and how we do it. BDO will continue to play its part in engaging constructively and proactively with all stakeholders in this ‘brave new world’.
GLOBAL REVIEW | 2018
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