HSBC to put audit contract out to bid after 20 years
Lender awarded KPMG the work in 1991 without competition but new auditor to be named in 2015
HSBC, Europe's largest bank by assets, said it would accept bids for its external audit contract, held by KPMG since 1991.
KPMG, the world's fourth-largest accounting firm by revenue, won the business without a bidding process, the bank said in its annual report this week, and there had not been one since.
The winner would be appointed in 2015, the bank said. HSBC recommended KPMG should keep the business for the coming year, and shareholders will vote on this at the lender's annual meeting in London in May.
HSBC paid KPMG US$80.5 million last year for services, including audit, tax compliance, computer security and help valuing assets. Auditors were criticised for not spotting practices that led to the banking crisis that began in 2007.
The Economic Affairs Committee of the upper house of Britain's Parliament said in a 2011 report there were "grave defects in the auditing of banks".